[Heathkit] Heath SB-1000 question

[Walt dabell]

I have a genuine Heathkit question for the list! ;-)

CQ SB-1000 gurus,

I recently acquired an SB-1000 that was built, but never used by
a now silent key. The construction was very good but I did find
some problems with the 10-40m coil.

See page 46/47 of the assembly instructions and Pictorial 6-13
and 6-13A if you have them...

My question is actually about the connection wire to the taps on
this coil as well as the coil itself.

Question 1)
Wire: I assume this is just tinned #16 or #14 copper wire or
something close? The assembler cut the wire going to tap #3 a
little short, so it is difficult to keep symmetry while expanding
the coil to it's full length described. So I want to cut a new wire,
slightly longer to make this connection closer to length in the
instructions. Can I use #16 or #14 tinned copper wire for this, or
is this some kind of special wire? The instructions just call it
"large bare wire."

Question 2)
Coil: The instructions say to make the coil stretch to 4". This
step was not done to spec by the assembler. The coil was closer
to 3.25 inches. There is hardly enough space to do the full 4"
stretch. The length of the properly stretched coil exceeds the
length of variable capacitor C27, and the coil's mounting lug does
not line up with the mount point on C27. What I ended up doing was
making it 4" long, but the tail end of the coil and the mounting
lug on the stretched end of the coil are bent backward a little to
connect to C27. It doesn't look clean, but it does now work on all
bands. Does anyone have any thoughts on how I might have done this
better, or is this the accepted practice?

Thanks in advance for any help or insight!
73!
Walt Dabell - W3WMD