Hey, thanks for the assurances. After I found out about the beryllium and remembering the precautions we took at the processing factory I was a bit alarmed. I tossed all the emitters I had left, damn the copper and vowed to not open up any more until I had more information.
Yes, I noticed the cheap safety cutout switches and stuff. Those things are uber cheap made with the bare minimum of circuits needed. After I took one capacitor apart not knowing the composition of the coil I just noted how quickly it oxidized and tossed the rest as I had no plans for them. I saved out all the transformers because I wrongly believed the windings were copper but unfortunately, all I have checked had aluminum windings.
I needed the copper windings as I was searching for suitable sized copper wire to use in jewelry wire wrap.
The one thing that has irked me is that even after carefully straightening what copper wiring I did get from windings around little feroceramic devices there is a pesky varnish I have not found a solvent to clean it off. With the varnish I can not use an oxidizer to blacken the copper for jewelry. If you know how to easily dissolve the varnish on copper wires I would love to know and be very grateful as I've found no source online explaining this. To get the varnish off I have carefully heated coils over a gas burner and then sanded off the carbon and have just used fine grit to sand the wires.
I will say, the coils around an old picture tube from a cathode tube TV are excellent wires. The fine windings I discard as I have no smelter but the heavier windings from the tube are perfect size. Since I'm stocked up now I quit searching out microwaves and am now focused on processing the copper wires I have.
BTW, the new flat screen TV's have little of value in the way of wires or gold fingers.
I did manage to get an old plasma flat screen, very large and almost too heavy to carry. On disassembly I noted that the base was heavy steel for weight but inside were hundreds of connections with gold plated fingers. I saved all the fingers from the many circuit boards and found some interesting wires. I had about eight ounces of fingers, maybe a couple hundred bucks of gold plate and then one of my "friends" managed to sneak off with it when my back was turned. The backing for the display was thick aluminum plate with many aluminum posts riveted into it for the circuitry in the back. That thing was built like a tank with heavy glass plates for the display parts. The new TVs have plastic sheets to disperse the lights from the LED backlights and for the display. Very interesting technology.
Yes, wire around the neck of a CRT is called the yoke, it's what generates the deflection that allows the electron beam to scan across the tube. They should have varnish on them as well, but the type varies based on manufacturer. Transformers also use varnish insulated wire, as you found out.
As far as getting it off, in electronics we usually just burn it off with a torch. Acetone may work on some, Dichloromethane may work on others (paint stripper.) There's no real universal answer, it depends on that manufacturer's formula, but what you're doing now is how we do it when something needs to be soldered to that type of wire.
You may be able to find fine copper wire in other places. Old telephone lead-in cable (not handset stuff) was often small gauge uncoated copper. Some CAT5/6 cable is uncoated solid wire. Radio Shack used to sell paired solid 24GA uncoated copper wire on spools, sometimes you can find that at shows that no one wants because the copper has oxidized. The center conductor of coaxial cable is often uncoated 24GA copper.
I tried acetone with zero results and one brand of paint stripper that made my hands burn since I wasn't using gloves. No results. Sanding alone with 320 grit takes time but burning and then sanding is faster and more complete. Also, heating to the point the varnish blackens does soften the wire some which makes it easy to get nice and straight by drawing through a couple of wood blocks clamped together.
The oxidation for me is a none issue since I'm going to use liver of sulfur I made. It's super concentrated so just a couple drops to water will do it. What's fun is to put the wire stuff I've made into a cup of water and then add drops of the oxidizer until it turns as black as I like. Then rinse it off real well and buff it a bit with cloth to remove some of the oxidation and leave highlights.
One friend who collected scrap copper wire had a bundle of wire a couple feet long out of some cable he stripped. It's a silver colored wire that is solid silvery color all through but not aluminum. It's shiny and fairly tough of a small gauge. I tried liver of sulfur on it and it barely oxidized at all so I'm sure it's not silver, maybe some alloy. I'm sure it's not stainless since I'm fairly certain no one would use stainless for electrical transmission. Maybe some marine grade electrical connector? Nice stuff and I used it in wire wrap as a contrast to the bare copper I plan to oxidize and in some of the other parts of this pendant I've used copper wire with a nice varnish so it won't blacken. In the end I should have three nice colors in the pattern with highlights on the oxidized stuff. So, four colors in the pattern.
Basically for wire wrap you have your foundation wire which needs to be large enough to be stiff and support your smaller gauge wire weave.
Yes, I could go to a hobby shop and buy all the wire I need but I think it's sort of cool to strip it out of electronics and go through the hassle of processing that wire to make it usable. Sort of like jewelry from trash electronics.
Usually most copper wire is tin-plated to protect against oxides. That's one of the reasons I suggested old indoor telephone cable, those were usually just bare copper. If you want super-fine wire, those old extension cords are usually stranded bare copper made up of several very fine threads of wire.
You may have run across one of the specialty cables. Things like nichrome (heater wire/resistance wire) are alloys and not copper. There are also thermocouple wires and all kind of specialty stuff that has different properties that are useful in electronics. Stainless can be used as a stiffener in other cables, so it's possible that was present as well...
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