Got copper to clean?

[CrealCritter]

5min soak in white vinegar and table salt

The long pipe is what the copper looked like. The shorter pipes are the results of the soaking.

Copper pipe isn't high quality like dishware copper is but I seem no reason why it wouldn't work on dishware copper.

 

[sumi]

Wow, that made quite a difference! Thanks for sharing.

 

[CrealCritter]

Playing around with some junk to see if I can make my own large guage wire copper terminals. If you ever have to buy them you'll know why. It's crazy how expensive they are like $8.00 for two. Mine however are about a dime a piece if I had to go buy copper tube but I already had some so they are free.

$8.00 for two and you can only buy them in one hole size per wire guage

My home made free one made with type K or L soft copper tube. I like mine better because the wire goes all the way to the end and I can drill any size lug hole in it i want. I could make this into any type of terminal I wanted now also (ring, fork, furrle) heck I could even use a length of copper tubing to join two pieces of wire together.

So easy to make it's almost ridiculous.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Look at you - that's great!

 

[Beekissed]

If you've ever made apple sauce or apple butter in a copper kettle, that's how pretty the inside of the kettle and also the pennies all look at the end of the process. First they are all cleaned with vinegar and hot water to remove the worst of the tarnish, but the apple acid really finishes the job...they all gleam bright as new copper at the finish.

 

[CrealCritter]

3/8 type L copper tube has 1/4" (.250) inside diameter so it could be used to make 4 and 3 guage terminals maybe 6 guage also but I would have to test that.

1/2" type L copper tube has 3/8 (.375) inside diameter so it could be used to make 2, 1 and 0 guage terminals.

That's the results of my testing so far. Just thought I would share this...

I've made up lots of cables over the years for lots of different applications like battery cables for vehicles and heavy equipment. I wished I figured this out sooner in life, I could have save a bunch of money over the years. Oh well live and learn I guess.