Stitching With Wire

[BWL]

As an electrician you are right but I believe that the "coil wire" is coated with Varnish ofter wrapping. If this is true the Varnish will flake off if un-wrapped. Varnished wire is a good idea and I hope I am wrong.

  On 11/24/2011 at 11:45 PM, northmount said:

If you buy coil, transformer or motor winding wire, it is coated with a varnish, so would stay the same color forever as long as it has not been scratched or worn through the varnish. You can buy from hair thin to large or very large sizes. You would probably want to stay with AWG 22 as the largest diameter. AWG numbers increase as diameter gets smaller.

As a point of size reference, most of your house wiring is AWG 14 for standard 15 A circuits.

See http://en.wikipedia....ican_wire_gauge for a table.

[Matthew S]

I picked up some 26-gauge jewellery wire and attempted a small stitching project. It didn't really go to well, mostly due to the rigidity of the wire. The wire wasn't difficult to bend, but once bent, unbending it was not an option. If the wire becomes kinked or develops an unfortunate bend, it isn't coming out and can look pretty horrible.

To be honest, I have only made one attempt and probably did not exercise additional care in handling the write while sewing. With extra care it may be possible to effectively stitch with wire and perhaps the results will justify the extra effort. I have a couple of small projects coming up and I'll give it another try.

If I can complete the stitching using the wire, I'll post the results.

Edited November 25, 2011 by Matthew S

[Northmount]

  On 11/25/2011 at 12:51 AM, Barbed Wire Leather said:

As an electrician you are right but I believe that the "coil wire" is coated with Varnish ofter wrapping. If this is true the Varnish will flake off if un-wrapped. Varnished wire is a good idea and I hope I am wrong.

If the wire was not varnished (insulated) before winding a transformer or motor, the coil would be a dead short since all the individual turns are layed against each other. The finished coil/winding is also dipped after the winding is completed and then baked to ensure it has dried throughout. Then it is tested to ensure no shorted turns.

As well, I have bought bulk wire (spools) and wound my own coils, rewound motors, and rewound automotive alternators. You will also find that if you attempt to solder this wire without scraping the varnish off, it won't solder.

I don't happen to be an electrician. I just have a wide range of experience in many areas having grown up in an automotive garage (from 6 years to 16) and came from a life where there was little money. Therefore you learned how to do things yourself, fix, build, etc. so you could have many of the things others take for granted.

I quoted the house wiring since I thought a few people could relate to having at least seen that size of wire.

Edited November 25, 2011 by northmount

[Northmount]

Matt ... you can straighten the wire by taking a partial loop around a wood dowel and draw it back and forth under a little tension. It will have quite a curl, but the kinks will be gone. Then pull it tight to straighten it.

For sharp kinks or snarls, time to start over.

Wire is worse to work with than lace is. At least with lace, you can recover from most snarls without any real damage.

[Matthew S]

  On 11/25/2011 at 1:49 AM, northmount said:

Matt ... you can straighten the wire by taking a partial loop around a wood dowel and draw it back and forth under a little tension. It will have quite a curl, but the kinks will be gone. Then pull it tight to straighten it.

For sharp kinks or snarls, time to start over.

Wire is worse to work with than lace is. At least with lace, you can recover from most snarls without any real damage.

Yup, the gentle bends are fixable, but those kinks you can't recover from. Of course the kinks seem to occur after you have made it 3/4 through your stitching.

[Northmount]

  On 11/25/2011 at 2:06 AM, Matthew S said:

Yup, the gentle bends are fixable, but those kinks you can't recover from. Of course the kinks seem to occur after you have made it 3/4 through your stitching.

Try a piece of dowel sharpened like a pencil, or a sylus or modeler to gently rub back and forth along the kink to work it back out. If the kink is already in a stich, then use a stylus to pull back a little room to play with so you can work out the kink. Be careful pulling it back as you could make a new sharp bend or kink.

I think a sharpened wood dowel is more likely to work to smooth out the kink than metal tools.

You may have noticed too that if you pull the wire too tight, it does a nice job of cutting the leather between holes.

Like you say, small lenghths are going to be much easier to handle.

[Matthew S]

  On 11/25/2011 at 2:16 AM, northmount said:

Try a piece of dowel sharpened like a pencil, or a sylus or modeler to gently rub back and forth along the kink to work it back out. If the kink is already in a stich, then use a stylus to pull back a little room to play with so you can work out the kink. Be careful pulling it back as you could make a new sharp bend or kink.

I think a sharpened wood dowel is more likely to work to smooth out the kink than metal tools.

You may have noticed too that if you pull the wire too tight, it does a nice job of cutting the leather between holes.

Like you say, small lenghths are going to be much easier to handle.

I will give that a try should I encounter another kink. I didn't experience the wire biting into the leather dangerously. However, I choose 26g wire as it was a bit larger than the smallest stuff (which was pretty thin and "sharp" looking and I intentionally eased off on snugging down the stitches to prevent the wire from pulling through the leather.

[BWL]

Northmount

You are so right, I did'nt think it through. The wire does need the insulation quality:surrender:

  On 11/25/2011 at 1:38 AM, northmount said:

If the wire was not varnished (insulated) before winding a transformer or motor, the coil would be a dead short since all the individual turns are layed against each other. The finished coil/winding is also dipped after the winding is completed and then baked to ensure it has dried throughout. Then it is tested to ensure no shorted turns.

As well, I have bought bulk wire (spools) and wound my own coils, rewound motors, and rewound automotive alternators. You will also find that if you attempt to solder this wire without scraping the varnish off, it won't solder.

I don't happen to be an electrician. I just have a wide range of experience in many areas having grown up in an automotive garage (from 6 years to 16) and came from a life where there was little money. Therefore you learned how to do things yourself, fix, build, etc. so you could have many of the things others take for granted.

I quoted the house wiring since I thought a few people could relate to having at least seen that size of wire.

[Northmount]

  On 11/25/2011 at 12:26 PM, Barbed Wire Leather said:

Northmount

You are so right, I did'nt think it through. The wire does need the insulation quality:surrender:

All is forgiven

[Northmount]

An additional piece of info:

To see what wire you have (varnished or bright), scrape a 1/4" or so at the end to see if there is a coating. Some newer plastic coatings might be difficult to see a difference. In this case, use a match to heat the end of the wire up. If the finish bubbles and chars, it is coated and no worry about corrosion.

Coatings/varnish come in different colors too. Probably related to the maximum temperature the coating is rated for, or different manufacturer. So getting a color match between different batches or sources could be difficult. Just make sure you have enough for the job at hand first.