Stripping is all in the blade

As I finally get around to stripping bin after bin of long-gathered low-gauge (thick) insulated copper wire, I'm wondering if I'm the only person that finds it kinda therapeutic to make that slice along the insulation then loose beautiful shiny top-grade copper. Maybe I'm just easily amused.

While I'm sure everyone has their own techniques for stripping, I want to share a personal advancement I've made in slicing.

Where I had long used a favorite Case pocket knife, I was recently doing some woodcarving and it suddenly hit me that a special carving blade -- one of the sharpest cutting implement out there, second to only a straight-edged razor -- might be ideal for slicing across long stretches of insulated wire.

Sure enough, it put my Case to shame. In fact, the rubber insulation was far less dulling to the blade than the cedar/bass/oak wood it was usually faced with. What's more, carving blades are specially balanced to fit the hand perfectly, based on ergonomics developed via centuries of decoy carving and the likes.

Of course, it is still all but mandatory to first heat the insulation a bit to soften it up. Amazing how many strippers still don't know that trick.

Yup, I've found the best blade for stripping is the cheapest box knife I can find. Plus it won't make you cry when the blade wears out - just buy another pack of ten from Ebay for pennies.

I have a wire stripper tool. Its by TNT tools. Its pretty cool. Push the wire threw, pull it out, pull out the copper. 1-2-3. It has 8 different sizes and you can change the blades to lower or higher. TNTTOOLING.COM

I use a 2x4 and drywall screws there's a video posted on here. I use to strip wired with a blade before. After a few hundred pounds a perma claw hands if found the video on here that made my life easier.

Thanks tiger. I did a tutorial on stripping braided wire (sorry, I haven't learned how to look up the thread and copy and paste like mech688 does...others too, but he's the fastest. Anyway, it was nothing new, I learned from Mick and some of the other experienced guys. I just wanted to put it in my own words for noobs. At that time I didn't know about heating the insulation. My emphasis was practice, practice, practice. And that would still be my emphasis, because when I was tempted to just throw it all in the insulated bucket... I just made myself keep at it. Now I get the same thrill you do when that blade just "slides" down that wire and the plastic comes off in a long piece and you can see that pretty copper like you said. I, too, find it very therapeutic and rewarding...and not just at the yard.

Therapists are gonna be out of a job if this keeps up. :D

I use a box cutter, works great for me personally. But I had no idea about heating first... Using a lighter is what comes to mind, could anyone share how they heat it first??

Personally, knowing that we live in a toxic environment and as a scrapper, handling lots of lead and aluminum, I like to use a dedicated wire stripper. Alot of people don't realize that coated wire contains a host of chemicals besides just plastic and by heating it, you are releasing all kinds of nasty fumes and gases into the air that you're breathing. Not Me. I use my TNT WSA wire stripper with work gloves. All you have to do is dedicate a size to a port and adjust the blade. Once you have this down, clamp the stripper with your vise and pass the wire through - piece of cake. It works beautifully. Plus the advantage the WSA has over other strippers is that once you have each port dedicated and adjusted, you can pass various size wire through without having to stop and adjust each time. A HUGE time saver which I don't think the others can claim. Just have a rudimentary understanding of wire gauge and know which port is for what gauge of wire. The thing is bullet proof in my opinion. Plus another advantage is that the blades are interchangeable, so if a particular port doesn't see any use, you can switch it out for another port or just sharpen it. A wise man once said," You have to know more than the object you're working with."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AuntieCake

I use a box cutter, works great for me personally. But I had no idea about heating first... Using a lighter is what comes to mind, could anyone share how they heat it first??

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Put it the sunlight to warm it up.

This idea might be weird to you, but I used to wash the oil off my fridge compressors doing it, which really puzzeled my scrap buyer until I told him how I did it.
I have a open topped plastic 20 gallon drum. I simply diverted the waste hot water from my dishwasher into it onto my Copper wire.....
Simple eh?
The first rinse comes thru as cold water, that cold water went directly out down the drain.
The next two washes are really really hot water, with soapy dishwasher in it, that took care of the oil and left the Copper wire smelling nice..

I was doing a quick rinse of the dishes first to make sure no solid food came out with the wash. The first cold rinse takes most of it off anyway.
Because the dishwasher heats the hot water up again to a even higher heat, its hotter water than you normally get from the tap.