Constantan Resistance Wire from Copper and Nickel

Constantan is a copper-nickel alloy, usually 55 % copper and 45 % nickel, whose electrical resistance stays nearly the same as it warms; that is why strain gauges, thermocouples and resistance coils are wound with it. Copper and nickel melt together in any proportion, so the alloy is made by fusing the two, casting small sticks and drawing them into wire. The melt follows C. Morfit's copper-nickel alloy as Brannt gives it in *The Metallic Alloys* (1889): nickel and an equal weight of copper fused with borax in a graphite crucible, the rest of the copper stirred in. Hiorns (1912) adds that the nickel must be as pure as possible, which is what the Mond process gives.