[rajacat]

I was digging through some old electrical stuff and came across this 4 wire, copper shielded and , I believe fiberglass sheathed cable.  If it is silver, I toyed with the possibility of building some power cords. Would this wire make a good AC and /or Squeezebox DC cord? I sliced the wire and no copper color is revealed.

http://rajacat.smugmug.com/photos/104063833-M.jpg
http://rajacat.smugmug.com/photos/104063541-M.jpg

[Jon L]

I highly doubt it's pure silver.  That amount of silver wire would make it extremely expensive, and it looks like silver-plating.

You can take a knife/razor and keep scratching the wire until you see what's underneath, likely copper. 

It doesn't mean it will sound bad as power cable, but make sure it is rated for high voltage, etc.

[rajacat]

I scraped the wire and no copper was revealed and it is definitely  not aluminum. This cable was bought at a yard sale that was run by company that builds extremely high-end yachts, so perhaps it is silver. Anybody out there know how to determine if a metal is silver?

http://rajacat.smugmug.com/photos/104199821-M.jpg

[mgalusha]

It's possible it could be stainless steel since it was produced by a yacht company. You migh try taking a pair of pliers and trying to flatten one of the strands. If it's pure silver it will flatten fairly easily, if it's stainless you likely won't be able to affect it much.

It does appear to be tarnished on the end, so it may very well be silver. Lastly, sometimes it's very difficult to scrape with a knife and see anything different. I've had this occur before. What I've found to work well when trying to figure out if something is plated vs solid is to cut the end as square as possible and then to further square the end using a piece of fine grade sand paper on a flat surface. Polish the end of the wire strand against the paper, holding it as square as possible and then look at it under a 10x magfiying lens and a strong light.

mike

[rajacat]

It's possible it could be stainless steel since it was produced by a yacht company. You migh try taking a pair of pliers and trying to flatten one of the strands. If it's pure silver it will flatten fairly easily, if it's stainless you likely won't be able to affect it much.

It does appear to be tarnished on the end, so it may very well be silver. Lastly, sometimes it's very difficult to scrape with a knife and see anything different. I've had this occur before. What I've found to work well when trying to figure out if something is plated vs solid is to cut the end as square as possible and then to further square the end using a piece of fine grade sand paper on a flat surface. Polish the end of the wire strand against the paper, holding it as square as possible and then look at it under a 10x magfiying lens and a strong light.

mike

Apparently it is indeed silver. I could easily flatten it with pliers. It seems logical that  high-end yacht builders might use silver cable for critical electronic installation since silver has a high tolerance for wet conditions especially where salt water is prevalent. This company builds yachts that cost millions of dollars and might have such accoutrement's as helipads on their aft decks. Stainless would not be appropriate for electrical wire.  This 4 conductor 14 gage cable also has copper shielding and a fiberglass sheath for fire resistance.
http://rajacat.smugmug.com/photos/104354845-M.jpg

I have about 12 feet of this. I wonder if it would make some good power cords or would I, since it is silver, have to endure 100's of hours of break-in? Hookup wire? DC power cord for SB3?

Suggestions welcome.

Raja

[brj]

I've never used them, but I'm aware of test kits that provide a liquid that changes color when applied to the metal in question.  The kits for silver usually contain nitric acid and will change color based on the purity of the silver or the other metals it might be alloyed with.