Most things from the BOM (see below) are going to be delayed due to Lunar New Year celebrations, but 2 components have arrived.

I was unable to figure out a good way to mount the joysticks without needing the PCB's, so that's why I got them.

The reason why I got the telephone cable and not some other type of multicore cable is because it was low-cost and each internal wire is single core, which has the following benefits:

• Easy to strip.
• No tiny strands to twist and tin to be able to thread them though perfboard.
• It can hold a bent orientation, making it easier to manipulate.

As seen below, I was able to use snippers to score the insulation and then use needlenose pliers to pull it off:

I then measured its dimensions:

• Outer: 4mm +/- 0.5
• Inner: 0.85mm +/- 0.07
• Core: Nominally 0.32mm, thus 28AWG

It also seems possible to remove the outer insulation with snippers, but I believe a dedicated 50p tool is still worth the investment considering I'd need to do this at least 22 times: