Copper Wire Stripper

Hello. My name is Andrew. My sister's b/f is getting a good amount electrical scrap wires on a daily basis from his new job as an electrician that wires up new residential homes, so I'm here to get some information on a copper wire stripper machine that'll be able to efficiently strip the copper wires. Stripping these wires by hand with a knife the past few weeks has been time consuming and labor intensive. I've seen so many machines online ranging from a few $'s to a few thousand $'s. I need help narrowing it down to a couple companies/machines that is reputable. I hope yall can point me to the right direction. Thanks in advance.

Welcome from Maryland.

Be sure to compare how much you are getting before and after stripping. Most of the time, if the yard is buying #1 insulated at different recovery rates, then you usually only see a 10% increase in value after stripping. It could be worth it or not..but using a knife wouldn't be to me...

Originally Posted by ryanw

Be sure to compare how much you are getting before and after stripping. Most of the time, if the yard is buying #1 insulated at different recovery rates, then you usually only see a 10% increase in value after stripping. It could be worth it or not..but using a knife wouldn't be to me...

80

$.85/lbs. insulated
$1.90/lbs. stripped

I'm wondering if $1.90/lbs. at this time is good price for stripped bare bright copper wire.......should I be asking for more?

That's a good price for bare bright as of today. The insulated price I would say is pretty low..even a little low for romex.

So, I don't know what you're stripping so we'll just go with romex. Assuming 62% recovery for romex, for every 100 lbs, you can sell for $85, or strip and sell for $117.8. Romex is kind of the bottom of the barrel for #1 insulated recovery. If you have different wire with higher recovery rates, then the difference would be much better.

Oh to add to the stripping machine question. I don't strip wire usually, but I have one. For solid core wire, one with just rollers that squish the center until it breaks through the insulation is the easiest to operate for me. For romex, you would need something that would cut the outer jacket off first.

Originally Posted by ryanw

Oh to add to the stripping machine question. I don't strip wire usually, but I have one. For solid core wire, one with just rollers that squish the center until it breaks through the insulation is the easiest to operate for me. For romex, you would need something that would cut the outer jacket off first.

Sounds good. Thanks for the info.

Thanks for the warm welcome fellas.

Hi from England ii in the same boat as u stripping by hand is very time consuming with little to show for it at the end I've got two hand held strippers one I made and one I got from eby will post a PIC of them up tomorrow

first off welcome to the forum. Read, read, read, read some more and then apply. There is a wealth of knowledge here and I'm just another scrappers who's is proof. (that's another post)

I still can't get the pics to load (i'm a buffoon lol) if you Google a picture of a "flaring tool" this will make more sense. I removed the large part and kept the body. The part with all the holes in it. I choose a hole that's slightly larger than the wire i'm wanting to strip. Then I place a razor blade between the two halves of the tool and adjust my blade till it cuts through the insulation ( I failed to mention you really need some kind of a vice to mount this contraption in). It can be a little cumbersome at first but it works great for me. I have to just try to strip wires of similar size at a time. One trick I learned though is I can have a little play in the size of my wire by pulling it slightly up instead of just pulling it straight through.