[ARC5] vintage headphone cords?

[Richard Knoppow]

     Coincidence, I just repaired a cord this morning. AFAIK there is no 
current source of made up headphone cords. I think tinsel cord material 
may be available but I don't have a source.  Often the cords wear out 
where the lugs are fastened to the headphone.  This is usually not 
difficult to repair.  The old lugs can be removed by heating them with a 
large soldering iron and pulling them off. You may have to clean out the 
residue of the wire.
     To solder the tinsel wire first strip it, then clean it with a 
knife. Then wrap it with fine wire. A good source of fine bare wire is 
the individual strands of zip cord (lamp wire). Wrap the end of the 
tinsel wire and solder it.  Then push the lug or phone tip over it and 
heat to melt the solder again. This works well.
    The original tips are sometimes crimped on, the smaller ones have 
teeth to penetrate the outer insulation so that stripping is not 
necessary. I have never been able to reuse them in this way but they can 
be soldered on as above. Its possible that dipping the end in solder 
flux may work but I think some sort of solvent may have been used to 
strip the insulation off the tinsel strands themselves.
     I would LOVE to know of a source for tinsel cord or even assembled 
headphone cords but could not find a source when I searched pretty 
thoroughly a couple of years ago.
     I have, BTW, made serviceable cords using lamp wire.

On 8/26/2016 9:14 PM, hwhall at compuserve.com wrote:
> Is there someplace that makes the old cloth-covered tinsel-wire vintage
> headphone cords? The kind that used to be found on Brandes, Trimm, etc.
> from the 1920s or 1930s or so? Google hasn't been my friend. I have some
> 1920s era sets whose cords are pretty far gone.
>
> Wayne
> WB4OGM
>
>
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-- 
Richard Knoppow
1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
WB6KBL