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Silver Coloured Cable.

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I have been working in an old house today and noticed some silver coloured P.V.C. insulated cable dating from the 50s/60s.. Most other cable there is grey coloured. I now know why the cable outer sheath was made in a silver colour. Do you?


Z.
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    I've salvaged a length of it in my unit but I'm at home and the name eludes me. It is a forerunner type of PVC. I'll try and have a look tomorrow. 


    Capathene (spelling)?


    Regards


    BOD
  • 0
    I have heard it suggested that the silver colour was purely cosmetic, to make the cable look like lead covered cable, which was still regarded by some as being the better qaulity product, with the new fangled plastic being considered as a cheaper and lower qaulity product.


    Whilst it sounds improbable to design fixed wiring cables for appearance, the same could be said of plumbing pipe, and there was at about the same time "copper effect" plastic waste pipe.
  • 0
    broadgage:

    I have heard it suggested that the silver colour was purely cosmetic, to make the cable look like lead covered cable, which was still regarded by some as being the better qaulity product, with the new fangled plastic being considered as a cheaper and lower qaulity product.


    Whilst it sounds improbable to design fixed wiring cables for appearance, the same could be said of plumbing pipe, and there was at about the same time "copper effect" plastic waste pipe.


    I believe that you are correct about the silver coloured P.V.C. being made to resemble lead sheathed cable of old. I came across a short piece of lead covered single cable under the floor boards. The lead was really shiny and looked like new. The single core conductor seemed to be copper with cotton/rubber insulation. The lead sheath was exactly the same colour as the newer silver coloured P.V.C. cable.


    Did sparks of old wear gloves when handling lead cable? Or were the risks unknown back then?


    Z.




     


  • 0
    It should be embossed with CAP along it's length. If so, it's capothene made by Cables and Plastics Ltd manufactured solely for the electricity boards in the late 50's to replace the BICC mix of rubber and plastics as BICC hadn't perfected mixing colours. It was lovely stuff to work with, nice and soft and flexible and I remember the red core was lighter in colour than the rubber or later BICC stuff.

    Those of you who are listening to Boom Radio are the right vintage.


    I will now power down my 3½ diskett and remove from my brain the drive I had fitted to assist the built in memory bank.
  • 0
    Did sparks of old wear gloves when handling lead cable? Or were the risks unknown back then?



    The risks were known, and understood, and as small as they are today, but handled more robustly.

    If you handle lead but wash your hands with soap and water before sticking fingers in your mouth or more likely for the era, eating your sandwiches and making a few roll-up cigarettes, then all will be well.

    The good workman does not roll cigarettes in works time but makes them at home when his hands are clean, and brings them into work, a few in a box in the trouser pocket, and one behind the ear... If his hands are not perfecty clean then holding the sandwiches in the grease proof paper to eat them makes them taste better!


    Lead is a big problem if you ingest it,  but it does not pass through the skin like a nicotine patch.

    You have to inhale or swallow filings, or heat it to a point that the fumes are an issue and then breathe them in- but in the day, the hydrochloric acid vapour of the fluxes in common use (Baker's fluid anyone?) meant you moved away sharpish if you got a whiff of the fumes during sweating (soldering) operations.


    Even the much pilloried lead soldiers are fairly safe to just play with, it is more the lead based paints, where the paint dissolves to a degree in saliva, that are/were  big hazard to children.  Some paints have a sweet taste, and that makes it even more problematic.

    Lead pipes are OK in chalky water, but the problem is when the water is soft or worse slighty acidic - such as in areas with a lot of peat- then the pipes are constantly dissolving into various lead salts, and some are very ingestible.

    Mike

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