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Painting a white cable wire? Suggestions Please

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http://boards.diynetwork.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3391013504/m/7853977957

May 30, 2012, 09:06 PM
Jonny_NYC
Painting a white cable wire? Suggestions Please
Hi

Does anyone have any suggestions for painting a white cable wire?

Thanks in Advance
May 30, 2012, 10:55 PM
Nestor
Well, Krylon makes a spray paint called "Fusion" that's intended to be used on plastics. If this wire is in a suitable location where you can spray paint it without causing a problem, I'd use Fusion.

Alternatively, for a more durable coating, you might just drop in to any electrical wholesaler and buy heat shrink tubing to effect the colour change. My electrical wholesaler stocks heat shrink tubing up to 2 inches in diameter.
May 31, 2012, 12:22 AM
Jonny_NYC
Nestor

Thanks for your reply.

I'm not sure what you mean by "heat shrink tubing to effect the colour change".

I was able to find heat shrink wrap on Amazon.com however I'm still unsure how that would help me paint the wire.

Please Explain

Thank You
May 31, 2012, 01:18 AM
Nestor
Heat activated shrink wrap and heat shrink tubing are both made of plastic that shrinks when heated.

So, with heat shrink tubing you wouldn't actually be painting the wire. You would slip the heat shrink tubing over the wire, and then use a hair dryer or heat gun to shrink the tubing so it shrinks around the wire and forms a coloured coating over your original wire; like this:

http://acehose.com/mcart/image...ubing%20(edited).jpg

You can buy heat shrink tubing in 3 foot lengths or 50 foot rolls in various colours at any electrical or electronics wholesaler, or any place where they sell supplies for repairing electrical equipment, such as an auto parts store. That's because heat shrink tubing is often used to insulate electrical connections, but it can be used to coat anything, such as putting insulation on the handles of pliers, colour coding small diameter tubing (like glass or copper tubing), or in the present instance, putting a coloured coating over a white cable wire to change it's apparent colour from white to something else.

Heat shrink tubing comes in various sizes up to 2 inch diameter, various colours and in both thick and thin wall.

http://image.made-in-china.com...chem-Heat-Shrink.jpg

In the above picture, those pieces of tubing weren't made with a diameter that changed. They were all the diameter shown on the right, and the ends of each tube were heated to make the tubing shrink to the diameter shown on the left.

So, in your case, you would slip a piece of tubing like that shown above over your white cable wire and then use a hair dryer to shrink the tubing so that it shrinked down to the diameter of your white cable wire. If you want that white cable wire to be red, use red heat shrink tubing.

Hard for me to believe that you've never seen or heard of heat shrink tubing. Maybe you just know it by a different name?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nestor,
Jun 06, 2012, 08:58 AM
Jonny_NYC
Thanks for the well though out feedback.
Jun 06, 2012, 02:55 PM
Nestor
Welcome.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nestor,