BriteLite Guide to EL Wire

Where To Buy

Very little Elwire is sold retail. I buy elwire from two places: CoolNeon (Oakland, CA), and Coolight (FL). Both companies are run by Burners. They both charge $1.20/foot for standard elwire.. Unlike Coolneon, Coolight also sells the Buttoneer, a very useful gizmo for attaching elwire to sturdy clothing. More details follow below.

Drivers

Elwire requires a driver (or “inverter”). Longer elwire requires a stronger driver. The best driver for costumes is the square one that take 9 Volt batteries – the 30 feet version: from Coollight or from CoolNeon
Get 30 feet of elwire. Costumes always look better with more elwire.
If the elwire is less than 16 feet long, you may want to try this driver from CoolLight or CoolNeon

Connecters

Elwire is hooked up to the driver with a connector. Coolight and CoolNeon use different connectors. They are not compatible. Choose one company and stick with them.

Soldering

Don’t bother with soldering. I recommend you have the vendor solder connectors to the elwire for you. The vendors discuss their soldering services on their websites. If you want to do your own soldering, you can buy one of the vendor’s soldering kits. The soldering kit already includes one good, small driver. It’s 10 times easier to learn soldering elwire by having someone show you. Rather than learn by reading. It’s not a regular soldering job because elwire contains 2 extremely thin wires that need to be connected.

How Much Do I Need?

To get a better estimate of how much elwire to buy, try-out some designs on your costume with wool yarn or a limp cord. Elwire is to stiff for that. This is where your artistry starts. Curves and symmetry are beautiful. There are few straight lines in nature.

Color

Just buy the elwire colors you think you like. Color charts are not very helpful. You need to see - and try combinations with - the real thing.. “Aqua” blue is elwire’s “base” color. Get aqua instead of regular blue. Also, get lime green instead of green. Purple is pretty, but not very bright. At different thickness (e.g. angel hair) the same color may be very different. I feel that elwire usually looks better on dark than on light backgrounds. Orange elwire on white is nice, though.

Attaching Elwire To Your Costume

Attaching elwire to your costume is not trivial. Elwire is unwieldy as it is not very flexible. Glue doesn’t adhere well to elwire’s PVC jacket. Always start attaching the wire on the driver end. That way, you control where the driver is located.

Safety Pins

The easiest way to attach elwire is to use safety pins. It even looks pretty good if you use small, black safety pins. You can get those at Sil Thread, 257 West 38 @8th. You’ll be able to take the elwire off and use it again elsewhere. Tie the end of the wire in a tight knot around a safety pin. That little section will probably go dark but that doesn’t matter. You’ll be able to properly secure the rest. You can always cut off this damaged piece. (If the wire goes all dark, just cut off this damaged section).

Sewing

Most people attach elwire to their costumes by sewing it to the fabric. Rather than just stitching left-and-right, the blanket stitch is far superior: Video How-to. Your elwire will be secured much tighter. The most elegant way is to use invisible thread, but that is quite tedious. Regular thread is fine. Securing the end of the (slippery) wire can be a problem. The heat shrink tubing often doesn’t hold when you stitch through it. My perfect solution is to glue a finding on to the end of the wire.

Buttoneer

The Buttoneer is a convenient tool to attach standard-thickness elwire to fabric. All the New York retailers that used to carry the Buttoneer no longer do. You can still buy them from Coolight: http://www.coolight.com/product-p/buttoneer.htm You will need lots of refills, and they're not cheap. When you start working with a Buttoneer for the first time, it is awkward. One you get the hang of it, you can attach elwire to clothing very quickly. Kostume Kultist http://www.electricbubble.org Christopher Hardwick is a big Buttoneer user and buys at CooLight. Tip: The Buttoneer only works on sturdy materials. For thin fabrics, hold some trim between your fingers to back up the thin fabric. “Buttoneer” the wire and both fabrics together. Cut the trim and leave some backing material behind..

Tape

Attaching Elwire to non-fabric surfaces has been quite a struggle for me. I’m getting surprisingly good results with Scotch clear, “Tear-By- Hand” packing tape. This tape is also great on the Playa for last minute elwiring of your bike, or for elwire re-attachment. You don’t even need scissors or your teeth. I buy this tape at Pearl Paint on Canal Street and Broadway, top floor.

Glue

You really want to be able to glue elwire to anything. Problem is, few glues adhere to the PVC elwire. Hot glue and fabric glue are quick and convenient. The results, however, are poor. It really sucks if after all your hard work and considerable expense, your elwire doesn’t stay put. I have tried a lot of glues. The best one I found so far is E-6000 http://eclecticproducts.com/e6000/craft.asp . It’s an industrial adhesive that has been adopted by the crafts community. It’s hard to get; try some of Miyong’s favorite craft stores in the Garment District. These are good stores to know anyway.

• Bhens Products 1231 Broadway @ 30th Street.
• Steinlauf and Stoller sewing & notions 239West 39 @7/8th Ave
• Toho Shoji beads 990 Sixth Ave @ 36th Street

E-6000 isn’t perfect. It dries slowly – it doesn’t reach full strength until the next day. But then it really holds the elwire. And stays flexible and clear. Also, find a ventilated place to dry your E-6000 project overnight. In a City apartment, this may be your bathroom with the door closed. PERC, the solvent, is not healthy. Incidental exposure is no big deal, though, and you can easily avoid making it an all night affair.

E-6000 comes out of the tube as a viscous blob. Viscous is good. But it’s a big blob. For small projects, I use a cable tie as spatula. When I’m gluing a sizeable stretch of elwire, I fill a syringe with E-6000. You can get syringes at the polyester repair section of http://www.westmarine.com/ 32 West 37th Street. Be generous with the glue. You really want to embed half the wire. Seeing some (clear) glue is not as bad as having the elwire come off. Unfortunately, E-6000 dries slowly (overnight). Use masking tape to keep everything in place. Masking tape is the blue stuff you use when painting. E-6000 doesn’t stick to it that much. For intricate curves, I put stitches into the costume, and insert a glue bead before tying down.