I was fixing a mutilated cable for a friend's portable music/video player
with a weird connector at the device end.

So I figured if I could get the connector shell open, I'd just use a new USB
cable to replace the original cable which had a USB connector at the other
end. The shell opened with an appropriate amount of pressure applied with a
ChannelLock plier (with thick tape applied to the jaws).

After preparing the end with shrink tubing and splaying the conductors so
they would be able to connect to the ridiculously small conacts inside the
connector, I began to tin the leads with solder, but the shield braid wire
would not tin.

With a magnifier, there was no visible pink copper color at the ends of the
freshly cut strands.

I don't know where the USB cable came from, but the wrapper and a sticker on
the cable are marked 14G000505709. The sticker also includes: ROHS
Compliant.

The cable jacket is printed with AWM E101344 style 2725 60*C 30V Space
Shuttle-D USB Revision 2.0.

--
Cheers,
WB
..............