The black tubing used at the end of the wires on SSL consoles is not Kynar at all. Kynar wire is the solid core 24/26awg wires commonly used on pot or switch wiring, normally red, blue, yellow green or white.
The sleeving on the balanced circuits (and others) is a rubber type sleeve and SSL used Hellerman products for this which were (still are) the best version apart from alternatives like heatshrink. I have my views on the pros and cons of both of these but that is another topic (in the wiring menu at some point).
The descriptions mentioned in a previous post were H10, H15 etc. The H refers to the brand name, Hellerman and the number is the interior bore diameter so H20 is a commonly used rubber sleeve with an interior bore diameter of 2mm. H12 is 1.2mm, H15 is 1.5 etc.
To complicate it even further, SSL used a thin walled sleeve when many wires were in the same area. The Hellerman part code was therefore TH05 (for instance) which is a Thin wall Hellerman sleeve with an internal diameter of 0.5mm.
Yeah, they do get brittle over time and after my experience with older consoles, I reckon 20 years is probably their shelf life. You can make them more flexible by applying Hellerman oil to them in order to remove and even reuse them (unlike heatshrink). Failing that, washing up liquid would do the same job...and keep your hands clean!!!
Heatshrink is good but more permanent and Telflon tubing costs more. Both of these have to be cut to size and you need a heatgun for the heatshrink of course.
Hope this helps a bit. Regards from Jim Lassen
