[TowerTalk] Copper wire prices

[Jim Lux]

At 06:54 AM 11/18/2006, Richard (Rick) Karlquist wrote:
>I just asked MWS Industries (the big magnet wire company)
>about aluminum wire with formvar.  They said they don't
>make any insulated aluminum wire.

Interesting.. I would have thought they would make just about 
anything (not necessarily stock, but they can make it custom, for a 
sufficiently large order).  I've bought customized wire from them, 
but, I admit, not insulated aluminum.. just things like 1 mil bare aluminum.


>I will note that insulated copper house wire is actually cheaper than
>bare copper "ground" wire, so it seems as if the insulation
>is dirt cheap to put on.  Or it may be an accounting anomaly.

I suspect you're seeing economies of scale or the manifestation of 
varying copper price from when the copper was bought vs when the wire is sold.

With copper prices going up, I wonder if any mfrs are "optimizing" 
their manufacturing processes to the small side of the allowable 
tolerance? (The ASTM spec is 1% or 1 mil, which ever is greater) It's 
not like the average Home Depot or Lowe's buyer carries a micrometer 
to verify that the AWG 12 wire is really 0.08081 inches in diameter 
as opposed to, say, 0.08.  That 2-3% difference could add up when you 
sell millions of pounds of wire, and your overall profit margin is in 
the 5-10% range.

{ Image of evil corporate manager rubbing hands cackling with glee... 
Bwa ha ha ha.. We cut 1 mil off the diameter of all our wire and I 
get a $500K bonus}

Probably not a big concern, BUT, there are enough cases of steel 
fasteners that weren't made from the alloy they were marked as, and 
that's driven by the same sort of "can we save a few pennies on each 
item" strategy.



Jim, W6RMK