enamel solvent

[David Schwab]

You can always use the Asprin trick. Asprin is acetylsalicylic acid and if you place the wire onto an asprin tablet of the non soluble type and put your soldering iron on top. Draw back the wire and it will strip it. Other than that tin it whilst it is on the Asprin. A small fan helps as the fumes ain't too good.

I forgot about that one!

[David Schwab]

Although the heat may be different, the melting temp should be the same regardless of size.

I was wrong about flames -- I just looked it up. A match gets almost hot enough to melt copper, a candle is more than sufficient, and butane is complete overkill. I still don't see how it would be possible with a soldering iron however.

The butane lighter definitely melted it into a blob. The soldering iron makes it get brittle and it breaks.

[jonson]

All coatings are different and require different solvents and what works for one need not work for another. The only universal one is an acid based paint stripper. Messy and time consuming. I havn't found a wire yet that dosn't come clean when drawn between my right thumb and a piece of 400 grit wet and dry. Pressure is the only problem to get round. It takes seconds so what's the problem. If there is any enamel or poly residue left then that burns off when you tin it.

[tedmich]

the erase corp makes the glass fiber "eraser" which Enzo swears by to burnish PCB traces and magnet wire, they can be had on Ebay for ~$10 and last for decades. They use the same principle for their little rotary wheel strippers which are supposed to work great ($!) They also make a harsher Chemstrip which is a proprietary dry mixture of NaOH (7.5%) and potassium nitrate/NaCl. It melts at 260C (!) and when molten will strip any wire in seconds. It darkens the Cu but some report this doesn't hurt subsequent tinning, while the company also sells wash/neutralization solutions. A 1:4 (wt:wt) mixture of KOH:KNO3 should melt at ~217C and do the same thing; its a eutectic thing as they melt at 406C and 334C respectively when pure.

Extreme care must be taken using molten salt, these are incredibly reactive and can explode showering unprotected eyes with burning caustic death.

I can report that low grade ~25% NaOH (draino) has a lot of insoluble crap in it and doesn't strip my wire at 100C, it could be the additives (<1% propylene glycol and "surfactants") are needed to work.

[Mark Norwine]

MEK works fine.

I would imagine Acetone would as well.

[David King]

Acetone doesn't work. I was thinking zip-strip aka Jasco but you would really have to get the residue off or you will have a situation over the long haul -similar to soldering with acid-core flux.

The fine copper won't melt at 700 degrees but it will oxidize and sublimate rather quickly. The copper will also readily dissolve (forming an alloy) into molten solder. Copper wire that gets heat-hardened can be annealed by quenching but that's impractical in fine gauges.

[Joe Gwinn]

The copper will also readily dissolve (forming an alloy) into molten solder.

The old Sav-A-Bit solder was invented to prevent this problem, the issue being erosion of the soldering iron. But it would also prevent erosion of the fine wire being soldered.

There was a thread on this, and I mentioned who still makes the stuff.

[David Schwab]

There was a thread on this, and I mentioned who still makes the stuff.

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t24670/