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I've been stripping some wire and I've noticed the outside looks like copper and the inside is a silvery color, is this solid copper still? All of my wire from different items looks like this.

Just a guess here, but I think you are mistaking the look of shiny new copper with a silvery color.

Tell me the type of wire you are stripping and I can probably tell you if it's solid copper. Most copper wire is solid copper.

Copper is red thru and thru, check with a magnet.

Yeah it's shiny, I think it's solid. It's from the wire around the TV. It's kind of rolled in tape and it's pretty thick.

This calls for a picture!

phones dead

Sometimes they are alum wire that has a copper color on the outside...

I think that's what I have. Like I said it's the outer thick taped wire on the back of the inside of a TV.

RD5 that is aluminum wire. It sometimes also has a teal,dark pink,or purple outer color. You can usually tell by the feel of it,copper will feel heavier
in your hand.

So I've determined the wire is copper and aluminum, now the question is, is it even worth stripping now. I mean it looks to be 50% copper, or I could be mistaken.

RD5 wrote:So I've determined the wire is copper and aluminum, now the question is, is it even worth stripping now. I mean it looks to be 50% copper, or I could be mistaken.

Aluminum wire is worth scrapping for sure! Its your personal decision whether its worth taking the time to strip. If it was really thick wire it might be worth stripping to get the full 55 cents a pound (assuming pure aluminum - maybe more if its copper/Al mix like you say.

Could it be the degaussing wire?

I picked up this message thread from last year and had a similar question. I've been stripping wires for about 2 years now and I know when I have solid copper in my hand, I know what regular copper looks like, that I've mastered (lol). So my questions are 1.) what is all this copper wire in microwaves and a lot of other places that has a brownish red tint, which is obviously not a regular light copper luster? I'm ready to toss this stuff honestly. 2.) Does industry copper coat aluminum wire with threadlike thickness? I'm short of a microscope at the moment. Thanks.

found some answers here: http://www.scrapmetaljunkie.com/236/how ... p-copper-2

thanks SMJ!

I've got a bunch of thick car audio power wire that I haven't stripped because it's silver outside with a copper colored core. Is this stuff worth salvaging?