Copper production

[airemdwn]

While pulling 500kcmil today an apprectice asked me, How do they make this wire? So i gave him my best answer at the time "Heavy". Afterwards i realized i have no idea how they make wire at all. Over 15 years in the trade and i really dont know? Anyone have a link or something because now i am curious! I dont want to know about Hard or soft annealing, or how its drawn down to all gauges. I want to know how the Single cable is actually assembled, Insulated, and packaged (Thhn, Xhhw) Id love to see how Welding cable or larger SO, SJO,etc. , and High Voltage cable 12kv and up??? Heck even RomeX is now making me think. I will go searching now and post a link If i find something informative.

 

[peter]

This is right up my alley.
For instance, to make a #10 guage wire:
The first step is molten copper is poured into a mold maybe 1000' long and 1/8" square. Round things, and wire is round, are made with lathes. So this ignot is then mounted between centers on a very long lathe. A follower rest is used to maintain concentricity.
The next step is inserting the now round wire into the tube of insulating material which has already been pre-bored with a very long drill bit. To ease this process, the wire is cyrogenically frozen and the insulation is heated. This results in a clearance of over 0.001" which makes it about as easy as pulling 300 kcm cable in 1/2" EMT.
Finally, the almost completed wire is passed through an assembly line where little, old, Philapino ladies use an indelible, fine tipped Sharpie to write on the legend: "AWG 10 THHN OR THWN [the manufacturer doesn't really know or care which] gas and oil resistant". They don't specify that the gas is Argon and the oil is Canola.
The finished product is wound onto reels, packaged and sold.
~Peter

 

[ceknight]

This is right up my alley.....(snip).....The finished product is wound onto reels, packaged and sold.

 

[bkludecke]

That's exactly how I thought is was done!!!!!!!!!!

Bob on the left coast.

 

[LarryFine]

Peter left out one important fact:

The insulation for wire for AC is drilled with a right-hand twist, while wire for DC is drilled with a left-hand twist.

Or is it the other way around?

 

[George Stolz]

Anyone have a link or something because now i am curious! ...

I will go searching now and post a link If i find something informative.

I beat you.

http://www.southwire.com/processGetArticle.do?commonId=bf99aba544bbef00VgnVCM1000002702a8c0____

But the process used in those days to make wire kept production at a dragging pace. Electrical wire was made by welding lengths of aluminum rod end-to-end. The brittle welds often broke in the process, causing production delays.

Frustrated by the inefficiency of traditional wire making, Richards sought a faster way to produce electrical wire of higher quality. He learned that an Italian industrialist had developed a method for continuously casting and rolling rod.

The process had only been used for commercial-grade lead and zinc wire used in fences and baling wire. The industrialist tried feverishly to convince Richards that it would not work with smaller electrical wire. Not to be deterred, Richards persuaded the man to sell him one of his machines and a team of Southwire engineers adapted the process to produce aluminum and copper rod.

Today, half of the copper rod for electrical wire and cable is made using Southwire’s patented Southwire Continuous Rod (SCR) method.