In article ,
Christopher Tidy wrote:

DoN. Nichols wrote:
In article ,
Christopher Tidy wrote:

Nick Hull wrote:

I need a good way to clean the oxides off copper electric wire. I run
and splice wire outdoors and occasionally need to make new splices when
lightning, animals or weather do bad things. It would be EZ if I could
being it to my bench but it all has to be done in the middle of a field,
maybe I can get an estension cord there. Is there some simple spray or
dip that will strip the old oxides off so I can make a decent twist or
solder splice? I don't have the luxury of cutting much off since most
of the wire is underground.

You could try smearing a bit of soft solder flux (plumber's flux) on the
bare copper and then heating it gently with a small blowtorch. Flux is
usually pretty good at stripping away oxides.


Except that there is sufficient acidity in that so it will eat
away the wires over time. It is intended for such things as soldering
plumbing -- not for wire soldering -- and especially not for stranded
wire soldering.

Really? That surprises me. I was also assuming that Nick was referring
to non-stranded wire, as the wires seemed to be running around his property.

The wires are solid 12/2 with ground and most joints were just twisted
together and wire nutted & taped. A lot of the ground wires were just
twisted together & taped or not, and they especially have heavy oxides.

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