diameter of served 3/8" wire

[redbopeep]

I'm in search of bronze thimbles for my rig. It is now 3/8" 1x19 ss but will be 3/8" 7x19 or 7x7 galvanized depending on what I can find for wire. I just got off the phone with Pete at Port Towsend Foundry who says "what diameter do ya want--how will you be serving the wire?" hummm... I've read Brion's book and a few others on traditional rigging, practiced a bit of serving while helping a friend with his boat and am getting ready to purchase or build a rigging vise to practice some splicing of the 7x7/7x19, but haven't a clue about what the final diameter of the parceled and served wire will be.

Pray tell, can someone here give me some numbers on the thickness of parceled and served wire? I haven't purchased the materials for this yet, but want to start comparing apples to apples on the thimbles I can find and use...thus should know how much over 3/8" I should be buying the thimbles.

I'm hopeful to keep them fitting inside the #20 (5/8") bronze rigging screws/turnbuckles which is why we're trying to be pretty close on the size. Taking a measurement, the jaws can take a toggle or thimble of thickness 5/8" and it appears the working depth of the fork end is a tad over an inch. When I look up the numbers in Nicolson's "Boat Data Book" it states the working depth to be 30 mm and thickness of eye min= 17 mm max=19 mm.

Thanks, so much for your assistance. Hopefully someone has a bit of parceled and served wire around a thimble and you can take a measurement?