Thanks for your effort to help me out I'm just done for today, i need to go grab some sleep.
I used a poly cylinder with 100 subdivisions, it must be enough. I'll try the lattice thing tomorrow.

To be honest i'd be happier with a nurbs circle extruded along a path but it requires some scripting because maya obviously can't do this job by default. And i'm not much of a MEL dude.

This is going to be sort of a cross section so to make it more exciting both the plastic insulation and the copper thread in it must be visible. Which means they must be separate objects.