I decided to try and strip some Cat 5 wire (maybe it was 5E or Cat 6, but similar to Cat 5), since I saw a roughly 4-5 foot length that was already partially split. So I thought I'd give it a shot. The outside layer came off pretty easily. So far so good.
Then I noticed three or four twisted pairs inside. With at least two of the twisted pairs I noticed that one of the wires was bare bright. Even though the wire was very skinny, bare bright was beckoning. So- how hard could it be to untwist one of the twisted pairs? It turns out that it took a good 20-30 minutes just to untwist a single pair. When I tried pulling it apart, the wire would get tangled up and it would take a while to untangle it. Yet each twist was only about 3/4" or 1" from the next one. So it was pretty tightly twisted.
Bottom line- it was a lot of work for something that looked pretty easy at the beginning. The wire was super thin and it is hard to imagine that I will end up getting more than an extra 10 cents or so for my 20-30 minutes of work.
I looked for videos on Youtube and couldn't find anything that seemed to justify the extra labor. Also looked for messages on this site, but didn't find anything promising.
Does anyone else know if there are any shortcuts that make stripping Cat 5 and similar types of wire worthwhile? Or do you prefer to sell it as insulated Cat 5 wire?
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