In another thread in a discussion about cables and insulation, SimonY asked:
Why don't you go a step further (towards natural sound?) and stay away from teflon too?
analog_sa followed up with:
What do you recommend? Cotton?
SimonY repied in part:
How about a paper dialectric? I've been wondering how this might be achieved...
Off the top of my head I couldn't think of a practical way to insulate an individual wire with paper, but remembering some DIY cables made by sandwiching a parallel run of wires between clear plastic packing tape, I suggested doing the same using gummed kraft paper packing tape. The kind you have to wet.
After giving that concept a bit more thought, I had an idea for a bit different approach.
So I gathered up some bare, 24 gauge solid core copper wire, a roll of kraft wrapping paper, a three foot steel straightedge, a thin 12 inch steel ruler, a technical pencil, an X-Acto knife, a handheld paper hole punch, and an Avery GlueStic.
A couple hours later I ended up with this:
Keep in mind that this is just a rather crude proof of concept attempt so I didn't bother trying to optimize things such as wire spacing. The wire spacing here is 3/4" which would make it ideal for mating to binding posts, but because there is bare wire exposed which could result in a short, I wouldn't recommend using this as speaker cable except perhaps for a low power amp with a current limited output.
The same caveat holds true for some line level components.
Basically, if you have any component that'll go tits up if its output is shorted, "DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME." You've been warned. Proceed at your own risk.
The experience of building this proof of concept allowed me to realize that the wire spacing could be brought down to something more on the order of 1/4" and the paper is though enough that the notches on the side could be a bit more closely spaced reducing the paper's involvement with the wire a bit more.
Here's how I constructed it:
First I cut a three foot strip of paper 1-1/4" wide using the straightedge and X-Acto knife.
Then I made two marks, one at each end of the strip 1/4" in from the edge on both sides.
I lined the straighedge up with the marks on one side of the strip and using the thin metal ruler, slid it under the strip and tilted it upward, rather like a sheet metal press brake. The same was repeated on the other side of the strip.
Using my fingers, I carefully started working the partially folded section over into a complete fold, being careful to make sure the crease was at the 1/4" mark.
Once I got them both folded over, I laid the strip down flat and burnished the creases with the handle of the X-Acto knife.
Next I drew a reference line down the middle of each 1/4" fold and then marked that off with tick marks every 3/8". Using these as a guide, I took the paper punch and punched out the notches on the edges, centering the punch on the tick marks and lining up the outside of the punch with the line.
It didn't seem too practical to try and glue the folds down over the wire along the entire length at one time so at every sixth notch I cut the paper between the outer edge of the strip and the hole and did it in steps.
I unfolded one section, carefully applied the glue from the GlueStic from the fold to the outside edge of the strip, lined the wire up with the fold and carefully folded the flap over the wire and gently pressed it down.
Then I used my fingernail to schooch the wire snugly into the fold and make sure the paper was glued down right up to the edge of the wire.
This was repeated for the remaining sections, allowing the glue to dry for a minute or two on the previous section before moving on to the next section.
Once all the sections were completed, I decided to remove more paper by punching holes down the center, using the inside seams as a guide.
Here's a shot of the flip side of the cable showing the construction in a bit more detail:
The cable's about two hours old and I've been giving it a bit of manhandling. It bends and flexes quite well. Rather like that decorative ribbon that has the wires running down each side. A couple of the butt joints where the sections come together have popped up a bit because I didn't get enough glue on 'em but are easily fixed with a little dab of glue.
So there ya go.
Paper cables.
se
Paper Cables (Ping SimonY)
