Anyone stripped Hardline COAX before?

Has anyone ever tried to strip 3/4" hardline COAX cable? It is the stuff they use to broadcast signals on towers and what I have is about 30yrs old or more. This has a 3/16" copper coated aluminum core followed by a layer of polyethylene plastic within a corrugated copper tube in a plastic sheath. It's been sitting around for a couple of years because I haven't come up with an efficient way of stripping it yet.

The trouble I'm having is trying to cut through the corrugated copper layer. The layer is thin but because it's corrugated it makes it much tougher. I tried with a carpet knife but all it would do is scratch it. The other question was is it pure copper or is it alloyed with aluminum?



Thanks!

I've tried on some similar if I am understanding your description right. A cutting wheel would be my suggestion.

You are talking 750 or .750 hence the 3/4 inch. It is indeed the stuff that ran up towers. You won't find much of it other than for that purpose. Most transmission lines through a CATV plant have an aluminum shield. I have not seen that corrugated shield in quite some time. I think you may have something worth stripping out there. Is the corrugated a solid circle? or is it wrapped?

How many feet do you have? I would take in 2 feet and ask your yard waht they would pay for it per pound and then go home and do whatever it takes to strip and seperate 10 pounds of it or so and then do the math to see if it is worth it to you.

I have never tried to seperate it, but have made plenty of connectors for it and it was pretty hard to deal with as opposed to the solid smooth aluminum sheathing.

Yes. I am an old cable rat. Never did towers, but plenty of head end work and lineman work.

Doh! And I did try really hard searching the forums for anything on this subject! Should've tried "Coaxial" instead of just "COAX". Thanks for the ref iScrap! That's exactly the stuff! I have about 100' of this stuff and it is solid circle corrugated.

In addition, I also found about 10' of the 2" stuff which had some sort of resin between the PVC pipe outer layer and the corrugated copper. Had to cut into 1' pieces and pull out the hard plastic interior which wound its way around inside. In winter time I bashed off the resin coating which came off nicely in the cold temps.

Thought about the cutting wheel Midnight. Maybe somehow fix an angle grinder into a solid position and then pull it through something that would apply pressure on it against the wheel as it's running. Sounds like a two man job.