Wire

“ To know has become a part of the sum of life; to understand or to abandon is the rule. When the ages of tradition, of assertion without the necessity for proof, of content with all that was and was right or true because it was a standard fixed, went by, the age not necessarily of steam, or of steel, or of electricity, but the age of thought, came in. Some of the results of this thought, in one of the most prominent of its departments, I shall attempt to describe.
A wire is the usual concomitant in all electrical phenomena. It is almost the universally used conductor of the current. ”

“ HOISTING FULLY COMPLETED LOCOMOTIVE WITH WIRE ROPE SLING
To the novice, wire is wire. Here he learns that what is wire for one thing is valueless for another and wire that looks to the unpracticed eye as if it were ready for market always has to undergo a few more processes before it is up to demands. Wherever, however far, you travel in this succession of high-roofed, airy buildings, you come always upon some new regiment of machines, some new container of chemical or metal, with a long line of reels unwinding wire to undergo some additional treatment. ”

“ Before me on the table is a spiral of copper wire, and in this wire, by special means, I can create what we call an electric current. I shall ask you to notice that when this is done two effects are immediately produced. In the first place, the wire becomes hot, and, secondly, it becomes magnetic. The fact that it is hot is evident, because it is now nearly red hot, and is visibly incandescent in the dark. If we dip the wire in iron filings, you will see that these cling to the wire and are taken up by it, just as when an ordinary steel magnet is substituted for the wire. ”

“ For this wire is as a part of our body, as a vein torn from us, glowing with our blood. Are we proud of this thread of metal, or of our hands which made it, or is there a line to divide these two? ”

“ In the making of wire screens the wire men have taken a leaf from the cloth-mill book, but in weaving a casing of cotton or other fibre around the wire for insulation the process is strongly reminiscent of some of the New England textile mills. Long rows of machines, black and silent and swift, reaching upward toward the ceiling, revolving rapidly on an upright shaft; long arms trailing downward, with wheels and bobbins like fingers plying dizzily but swiftly in and out around the wire which unwinds from its spool and keeps forever climbing. ”

“ The uses of wire are multifarious and diverse beyond all enumeration. It forms the raw material of important manufactures, such as the wire-net industry, wire-cloth making and wire-rope spinning, in which it occupies a place analogous to a textile fibre. Wire-cloth of all degrees of strength and fineness of mesh is used for sifting and screening machinery, for draining paper pulp, for window screens, and for many other purposes. Vast quantities of copper and iron wire are employed for telegraph and telephone wires and cables, and as conductors in electric lighting. ”

“ WHERE WIRE IS MADE To measure the growth of wire, with its many forms and composites, during the last forty years would be to trace in detail not alone the progress of science, invention and mechanical industry, but the myriad conceits that have come ostensibly to facilitate the process of living. ”

“ I shall now explain how mechanical power may be converted into electricity. It has been found that if a wire, preferably of copper, of which the ends are joined together, is moved past a magnet a current is induced in the wire, flowing in one direction while the wire is approaching the magnet, and in the opposite direction while it is receding from it. ”

“ Man has no sense by which he can estimate the strength of a current flowing in a wire—by touching the wire he may get a shock and thus conclude that the wire is at a higher potential than he is himself when standing on the earth ”

“ A network of wire, crossing and recrossing but always carrying the same current, may be embedded in plaster and a gentle heat may be imparted to the whole mass through the resistance of the wires to the electricity and their contact with the non-conducting material. ”

“ The Line is made of strong copper, iron, or soft steel wire. To keep the current in the line it is insulated, generally upon poles, by glass insulators. For very short lines two wires can be used, the line wire and the return; but for long lines the earth is used as a return, a wire from each end being joined to large metal plates sunk in the earth. ”

“ We do not limit ourselves to any specific form of the curved wire --1-- as this feature admits of many modifications. The essential feature of the said wire stay is in its ability of being flexed in any direction without danger of being broken. ”

“ When wire is wound by hand from a spool into a coil, or around a core, it soon becomes twisted and tangled. Make a winder. This will keep the wire straight and save much time.
APPARATUS 81.
Fig. 54.
108. Electro-Magnet. Fig. 54. Drive a nail into a board so that it will project about 3⁄4 of an inch. A soft, or wrought-iron, nail is best, but a short, thick wire-nail will do. If you do not have a thick nail, use an iron screw. Wind 3 or 4 layers of insulated copper wire around it, and fasten the bare ends of the wire down with bent pins. ”

“ Now the wire is drawn through these holes; beginning at the larger ones, and passing every time through the next smaller one, it stretches the wire out, until it becomes as small as the workman wishes it to be. ”

“ People often ask how quickly electricity travels, as if when we sent a telegraph signal along a wire a little bullet, so to speak, of electricity were shot along the wire like the carriers of the pneumatic tubes in the big drapers' shops. That is quite a misconception, for in reality the circuit of wire is more like a pipe full of electricity, and when we set a current flowing what we do is to set the whole of that [Pg 160] electricity moving at once. ”

“ The wire-drawing machines include means for holding the dies accurately in position and for drawing the wire steadily through the holes. The usual design consists of a cast-iron bench or table having a bracket standing up to hold the die, and a vertical drum which rotates and by coiling the wire around its surface pulls it through the die, the coil of wire being stored upon another drum or “swift” which lies behind the die and reels off the wire as fast as required. ”

“ On the top of a finely-pointed wire, rising perpendicularly from the conductor, let another wire, sharpened at each end, be made to move freely, as on a centre. If it be well balanced, and the points bent horizontally, in opposite directions, it will, when electrified, turn very swiftly round, by the re-action of the air against the current which flows from off the points. ”

“ If this is done, be the wire even as small as a silk thread, and made of copper, all electric communication is effectually conducted off its channel. Each current, or wave, or signal, sent from either side of this wire will take the short cut and follow it to the ground, where it becomes lost. Neither side can converse or signal over such an obstruction, and they do not know the character or location of the trouble, as the wire works as usual. Of course each operator will wonder why the other does not respond to his signals, and absence is taken for granted as the reason. ”

“ If wire is to be used, one post every sixteen feet will be enough, with a smaller stake between, to serve as a support for the wires. Now stretch your wire, the lowest one about two feet from the ground, the second one eighteen inches above it, and the third eighteen inches above the second. ”

“ As a rough guide in practice, it may be borne in mind that a wire about one tenth of an inch in diameter and one hundred feet long, held vertical and insulated, with its bottom end about six feet from the ground, has a capacity of 0·0002 of a microfarad, if no other earthed vertical conductors are very near it. ”

“ Modern life, in all its intricate bearings, runs on wire. Wire everywhere; in the heavens above, the earth beneath and the waters under the earth. In all the legerdemain of science, which has put nature in bondage, wire is the indispensable agent. ”

“ As the light is one continued body, throughout the whole extent of the wire, the force it receives at the end next the glass globe, is immediately, and at the same instant of time, communicated to the other end, let the length or extent of the wire be ever so great. ”

“ If a wire is connected to each of the plates and the free ends of the wires touched to the tip of the tongue it will produce a peculiar salty taste in the mouth indicating the presence of a current of electricity. ”

“ The energy of the currents and the quality of the wire also affect the speed. Until lately it was supposed that the wire acts only as a conductor of electricity, and that a long wire must produce a weaker effect than a short one, on account of the consequent attenuation of the electrical influence; but it is now known that, the cable being a reservoir as well as a conductor, its electrical supply is increased in proportion to its length. ”

“ In a very important class of electrical arrangements the current is conducted through round wires of nearly uniform section, and either straight, or such that the radius of curvature of the axis of the wire is very great compared with the radius of the transverse section of the wire. ”

“ The things that are done with wire in the Western Electric factories are too many for any mere outsider to remember. Some wire is wrapped with paper tape at a speed of nine thousand miles a day. Some is fashioned into fantastic shapes that look like absurd sea-monsters, but which in reality are only the nerve systems of switchboards. ”

“ Wire (Steel) .— [Charles Lean.] — (B. 591.) One hundred years ago a horse was employed for drawing wire by a firm in the town. New applications of wire within recent years have been telephones, deep sea sounding, road and aerial tramways, and cycles. The scrap wire is utilised for nails; it is also bought by hawkers for the purpose of making riddles and a number of wire articles. No women or girls are employed in the trade of the district, and perhaps about 700 men and boys, the bulk of whom draw iron wire only. ”

“ Wire is made by drawing a rod of soft, hot iron through a hole which is too small for it. If a still smaller sized wire is desired, it is drawn through a smaller hole, and this process is repeated until the required size is attained. ”

“ Strike the inside turn of wire up close to the end that is fastened to the binding post, and a tone will issue from the spiral that is long, deep and loud, for the wire with its free end forms a very perfect vibrating body. ”

“ If we tried to make one of these lamps with an iron wire, we should find that when the electric current is turned on and begins to flow through the wire, the wire will, in accordance with a well-known law, become warm, then hot, red-hot, and white-hot ”

“ The wireman who is called upon to plan and install a system of wiring will find it necessary first to have a knowledge of the various kinds of wire so as to select the one best suited for the work, and to be able to make simple calculations in order to determine the proper sizes of wire for the various circuits. ”

“ A stout wire will transfer a bigger quantity in unit time than a thin wire, or, as we may also say, it is able to carry a bigger current. When it is a question of electricity in motion the conductor must have body, whilst as we have seen, with electricity at rest only the surface counts, or, to speak more correctly, only the capacity counts. ”

“ This conductor is then enveloped in three separate coverings of gutta-percha, of the best quality, forming the core of the cable, round which tarred hemp is wrapped, and over this, the outside covering, consisting of eighteen strands of the best quality of iron-wire; each strand composed of seven distinct wires, twisted spirally, in the most approved manner, by machinery specially adapted to the purpose. ”

“ So long as the two plates of metal are not otherwise connected there is no electricity in evidence, but when the two are joined by any metal conductor, as, for example, a piece of wire—thus, in common parlance, "completing the circuit"—a current of electricity flows about this circuit, passing from the first metal plate to the second, through the liquid and back from the second plate to the first through the piece of wire. ”

“ As shown in fig. 638, a wire AX, of non-oxidizable metal, of high resistance and low temperature coefficient, passes over a pulley B mounted on the shaft C. The ends of the wire are attached to the plate E at its ends F and G, the wire being insulated from the plate at G. A spring H holds the wire in tension and takes up the slack due to the expansion caused by the heating of the wire when a current passes through it. ”

“ We apparently produce out of nothing but the whirling of a huge bobbin of wire any power we may wish, and send it over a thin wire to where we wish to use it, though every adult can remember when the difficulty of distance, in the propelling of machinery, was thought to have been solved to the satisfaction of every reasonable man by the making of wire cables that would transmit power between grooved wheels a distance of some hundreds of feet. ”