On the soft bodied solenoid I wait until I have accumulate 20 to 30 of them (enough worthy of my time). Set them in a old black baking pan I have, let the sun soften them up even more (1 or 2 hours). Take a sharp PVC cutter, cut the bottom off (1/8 of an inch). Take a dentist tool (don't know actual name), they have a "hook" on one end and a probing point on the other. Insert the "hooK" end into the copper wire, slight turn and pull motion is all you need to do. The PVC cutters cut through sun soften plastic, as if it was "butter". The PVC cutters and the dental tool is what I have found to be best technique for me. The solenoids with two tabs have one coil and the one's with three connection tabs have two separate coils in them. These type have a upper and lower coils with a plastic insulator in between them. Not a lot of copper unless you have a couple dozen to work, but copper is always better then nothing.
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