best wire to use and where to get it

Wire is wire in a passive guitar or bass circuit. Any stranded copper wire will do. Just use whatever you have. Cloth covered pushback wire will have no effect on your tone. It’s mainly used for vintage cosmetics and out of nostolgia.

 

TefZel, like TefLon (PTFE) is the best:

22 Ga. Stranded, Tin Plated, Aerospace Grade, Tefzel Wire | TubeDepot.com

an added benefit of the TefZel jacket is that it's more difficult to inadvertently melt it

 

If you're melting the wire insulation, you're doing something wrong.

 

If you're using TefZel coated wire, there's less chance of melting it.
So, less chance of doing it wrong. (following that^ logic)

 

If you need to use Tefzel wire because you keep melting plain old wire insulation, you shouldn’t be soldering anywhere near a pickup. Hows that?

 

I'd use the cloth push back since you've got it handy and: it looks real nice and "vintagey". Then, you can pretend that your Ric is an Olympic white 1959 P bass with rosewood fretboard..........

 

They don't make the TefZel & Teflon coated wire for no reason. Use it with confidence!

The question was "best wire" & that remains my answer.

 

I would get wire with the same colour of insulation as that inside the Rickenbacker. This is because I like my wiring to look neat and consistent; as though it came from the factory.

Wire with insulation that is difficult to melt simply encourages poor soldering practices. Okay the insulation doesn't melt under duress, but you could still cook other components. Switching push/pull pots aren't as resilient to heat as normal pots, and the switching mechanism tends to be the weak link. Soldering up a wiring harness is a bit like boxing! You want to be three steps ahead, and you want to be in and out of there in a flash.

 

They do make TefZel, Teflon and similar insulations for a reason. They are much harder to nick and chafe causing shorts. Hence the aerospace designation. If you’re using them to not melt while soldering you’re using them for the wrong reason. If you’re melting something like polyolefin insulation you’re putting too much heat into the component you’re soldering and could easily cause damage components. I spent 15 years as a bench repair and calibration technician working on laboratory equipment. I’ve spent the past 16 years as a manager in an aircraft maintenance facility. I know quite a bit about correct soldering technique. TefZel, Teflon and others are the best wires for their intended purposes but those purposes are not that they don’t melt when soldering poorly.

 

Thank You!
It's also nice that an added benefit is that it's more difficult to melt the jacket

 

Finally got around to re-soldering my instrument cable today, because the old joint cracked loose recently.
Quickly got reminded why stuff gets overheated, because even after painting on some flux paste the solder was just not sticking to the sleeve.
It finally did after heating it up quite a lot, luckily nothing got melted, except solder, of course.