Is this copper wire? (Photos attached to post)

Okay, check this out: I filled a graduated cylinder with 110 mL of room temperature tap water. I added enough of the wire, pulled from the top right motor in my uppermost photo, to the water in the graduated cylinder until it had risen 10 mL. I dried the wire, and found the wire's mass. The mass was 67.11 grams (used a Scout Pro digital scale suitable up to 400 grams). Using the formula for density D=M/V, this means the density of this unknown wire is 6.71 g/mL... Copper's density is 8.96, so this cant be copper. Aluminum's density is 2.70g/mL. Neither one of these is close to what I measured from the unknown wire .. so what really IS this wire made up of? Zinc has a density of 7.13g/mL, so according to my measures this wire could be zinc. Or an alloy of some sort?

Okay, I know this is too technical, but now that I know this wire is not aluminum and it's not copper, it's got me hooked.

Originally Posted by FLScrapperGuy1

Okay, check this out: I filled a graduated cylinder with 110 mL of room temperature tap water. I added enough of the wire, pulled from the top right motor in my uppermost photo, to the water in the graduated cylinder until it had risen 10 mL. I dried the wire, and found the wire's mass. The mass was 67.11 grams (used a Scout Pro digital scale suitable up to 400 grams). Using the formula for density D=M/V, this means the density of this unknown wire is 6.71 g/mL... Copper's density is 8.96, so this cant be copper. Aluminum's density is 2.70g/mL. Neither one of these is close to what I measured from the unknown wire .. so what really IS this wire made up of? Zinc has a density of 7.13g/mL, so according to my measures this wire could be zinc. Or an alloy of some sort?

Okay, I know this is too technical, but now that I know this wire is not aluminum and it's not copper, it's got me hooked.

I will give you an "A" for effort, but how did you subtract the weight and volume of the varnish and air trapped in the coil windings? Is it possible that could have resulted in a lower density value that would have been computed from a solid block of copper?

Good point.. more work is needed.. I didn't have any air trapped, I don't think, but the varnish - well how do I remove that from 66grams worth of wire? Lol, that's a half days work of sanding. I also have to admit, the wire strands, which were all coiled up, were not completely dry at the time of measure. I think just now the mass dropped to 66.14g. More work is needed for sure. I need a smaller sample size to easily remove varnish, and a way to measure super small changes in water displacement, such as 0.5mL. Or, I could just call this stuff either copper or aluminum and move on with my day!! lol

Also, copper is copper no matter what form, it should have the same density whether solid block or pulled wire.