Measuring wire gauge

I'm recreating part of a wiring harness and I'm trying to determine what size wire was in the original harness. After a quick search on the web I found the following chart for automotive wire gauges.. this information was repeated on several web sites.

<DT>16/.030=18</DT><DT>19/.029=16</DT><DT>19/.027=14</DT><DT>19/.025=12</DT><DT>19/.023=10</DT><DT>19/.021=8</DT><DT>37/.021=6</DT>

So I measured what I think is 16 gauge wire and got a completely different number I measured .011 inches. Then I thought the above was in cm.. but then I noticed that the diameters were decreasing as the gauge decreased.. that didn't seem correct. What am I missing?

I did find a link to a chart that makes more sense to me and confirmed that 19/.0112 inch is 16 gauge.

http://www.jamesmonroewire.com/19strand.html

 

Just use a size larger in every case, unless you know that one is a resistor wire. What you are finding out is that they have changed to the metric, for the world market (I know, it sucks). So now when they make a hundred miles of wire, they save money.

 

Metric still doesn't explain how the strand diameter is going down for lower gauge numbers

 

Herbet,the James Monroe wire size chart is correct,thats the one to use.
Have a great day.
...........................Jack

 

Thanks.. that's what I'm going with.

 

I don't know any thing about automotive wire gauge. But the standard is AWG or American Wire Gauge. They are getting by with still calling it that and at the same time down-sizing the actual size.

 

Wire gauge numbers come from how it's made. Larger solid copper bars are pulled through dies to get it to the size needed. The more pulls, through more dies,!equals a smaller diameter wire with a larger gauge number. 18 gauge is pulled through 18 different dies, large to small, until the desired size is reached. So, smaller wire=larger numerical gauge number. I'm sure there are engineers to blame for this.

 

The American Wire Gauge is also known as the Brown and Sharp Gauge and has been around for many years. The smaller the wire size, the smaller the gauge.

You can probably get a chart online that helps a lot.

Bob

 

<TABLE border=1 borderColorLight=#cc9966 borderColorDark=#660000><TBODY><TR><TD width=471 colSpan=2><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>WIRE GAUGE DIAMETER TABLE</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

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</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>American Wire gauge</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

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</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>Wire Diameter in inches</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

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</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>20</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.03196118</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>18</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

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</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.040303</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>16</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.0508214</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>14</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.064084</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>12</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.08080810</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>10</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.10189</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>8</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.128496</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>6</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.16202</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>5</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.18194</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>4</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.20431</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>3</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.22942</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>2</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.25763</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>1</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.2893</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.32486</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=267><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>00</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

​

</TD><TD width=203><!--mstheme-->[FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]<SMALL>0.3648</SMALL><!--mstheme-->[/FONT]

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>​

http://www.rbeelectronics.com/wtable.htm

 

Exactly... But that's not what the chart says. It says smaller wire=smaller number