Wire

A wire is a single, usually cylindrical, flexible strand or rod of metal. Wires are used to bear mechanical loads or electricity and telecommunications signals. Wire is commonly formed by drawing the metal through a hole in a die or draw plate. Wire gauges come in various standard sizes, as expressed in terms of a gauge number. The term wire is also used more loosely to refer to a bundle of such strands, as in 'multistranded wire', which is more correctly termed a wire rope in mechanics, or a cable in electricity.

Wire comes in solid core, stranded, or braided forms. Although usually circular in cross-section, wire can be made in square, hexagonal, flattened rectangular, or other cross-sections, either for decorative purposes, or for technical purposes such as high-efficiency voice coils in loudspeakers. Edge-woundcoil springs, such as the Slinky toy, are made of special flattened wire.

History

In antiquity, jewelry often contains, in the form of chains and applied decoration, large amounts of wire that is accurately made and which must have been produced by some efficient, if not technically advanced, means. In some cases, strips cut from metal sheet were made into wire by pulling them through perforations in stone beads. This causes the strips to fold round on themselves to form thin tubes. This strip drawing technique was in use in Egypt by the 2nd Dynasty. From the middle of the 2nd millennium BC most of the gold wires in jewellery are characterised by seam lines that follow a spiral path along the wire. Such twisted strips can be converted into solid round wires by rolling them between flat surfaces or the strip wire drawing method. The strip twist wire manufacturing method was superseded by drawing in the ancient Old World sometime between about the 8th and 10th centuries AD. There is some evidence for the use of drawing further East prior to this period.

Electric Tepee

Electric Tepee is the seventeenth studio album by the English space rock group Hawkwind, released in 1992. It spent one week on the UK albums chart at #53.

After a European tour in March and April 1991, long-standing keyboardist Harvey Bainbridge chose to leave the group. Female singer Bridget Wishart would also end her association with the group in September. The group would go on to operate as a three piece of guitarist Dave Brock, bassist Alan Davey and drummer Richard Chadwick, making heavy use of sequencers, synthesisers and computers, both in the studio and live.

The album was recorded in 1992 at Brock's own Earth Studios, produced with Paul Cobbold. "Mask of the Morning" re-uses the lyrics from "Mirror of Illusion" from the 1970 debut album Hawkwind. "Rites of Netherworld" is a brief keyboard piece based on Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

The group undertook a 23 date UK tour in April and May to promote the album, appearing behind a curtain on which the lightshow was projected. An all-nighter at the Brixton Academy on 15 August, when they were joined on-stage by Salt Tank, was amateur video recorded and released as Brixton Academy 15.8.92.