I am not sure of the gauge of wire I have been using, but I just went to ebay and searched for pick up wire. If I had to guess it would be about 18 gauge. This stuff is not very expensive 200 ft is about $20 for solid core copper wire.
I also have a box of Cat 5 wire in the garage that is bad. In other words if you try to make an ethernet cable out of it longer than 10 ft, it won't work. But This stuff is great for wiring up models. Just strip off the outer jacket and I have 12 strands of color coded wire. This is 25 gauge wire. Since I have a whole box of 200 ft, I am not running out of wire any time soon.
I prefer solid core over stranded. Solid core is just easier to work with for models. With stranded wire, you have to pre tin your wires before you solder them together. Granted if you are working with SMD LED's you have to pre tin your wire anyway or you will never solder the LED to the wire. It is just too tiny to try to do other wise. I would NOT use stranded wire on SMD LED's
Magnet wire is more durable, it has to go through a wrapping process as it is wound around a motor casing. So it has to have a good tensile strength. I have used magnet wire at somewhere near 35 to 40 gauge. This is very hard to work with since the wire is smaller than a human hair in diameter. But I never once got a short in that wire and it held up to some pretty rough handling.
ModelmanTom has some pretty flat wires he is about to start selling. I have a sample for review and will be putting a review of that up soon. I just have not had a lot of free time in my life lately.
