Headphone wires broke.

[MichaelTorr]

My headphone cord broke, and I need to fix it. Here's the problem:

the cord is actually two wires (left and right speaker).

Each one of those cords has 2 wires inside of it (4 wires total)

Now this is where it gets really weird...

The first cord has a green and gold wire.

The second one has a red and gold wire. I suppose the gold in each case may be copper.

Anyhow, I didn't know that the bare wire could be colored. So I took a Flathead screwdriver and tried scraping the paint (and or wax) off of the wire. I don't believe the wax/paint is coming off, it seems to fray the wire into what feels like a blond rope material (like fibers), and red wires. The gold wire also frays into what I believe is gold metal (wire) and blond rope like fibers as well.

Do I just connect the 4 wires to their appropriate counterpart from the other end of the headphone cord, or do I need to strip these things down, possibly remove wax etc. To make electrical contact?

And I attached a picture to show you what I am talking about

 

[MichaelTorr]

Solved. the blonde rope like stuff, I think it is nothing more than remarkably fine copper strands. the red and green stuff, it appears to be colored wax. the gold waxed wires are the neutral wires.

The solution, burn the wires with a cigarette lighter to burn off the plastic, then just reattach the wires to their correct counterpart, make sure only the proper wires touch. I used scotch tape (didn't have electrical tape) and then taped it all together with duck tape for support. the left speaker connection is less than perfect, it sometimes cuts out when I move my head. But it's better than nothing. Next time I will try using solder and dripping candle wax on the wires after I reattach them, to keep the wires from touching the other set of wires, because using tape is sloppy.

[deltaminds]

By the time I finished reading what your problem was, I forgot what you were trying to say XD Glad you solved it.