Anyone have experience on Stripping BX cables?

**joebeers** · 10-09-2015, 08:54 PM

Hi guys, I am looking to find a solution to strip about 100,000 lb bx wire recently, I found the company Maple Legend which has a machine called ML-BX armored cable ans wire stripper?Anyone has experience dealing with them? the machine seems what I need....

any inputs will be greatly appreciated!!!

**HT1** · 10-10-2015, 05:48 AM

if you have that much BX (sorry but i'm really used to people exaggerating) unless you have a stream meaning you are going to buy that much each month there is no way buying that machine is cost effective. with 100K of BX ,steel or aluminum, you should easily be able to sell the wire as is for top dollar. stripping will probably cost you money, at least the price of the machine. the aluminum side of that stripped product s actually devalued unless you clean and briquette it.
if it is in coils and not a balled up mess you can lay it out and pull the wires ( I still dont recommend it ) way too much work.. Do a google search for "scrap wire broker" and make some calls

V/r HT1

P.S. if someone told you "you'll make more for stripping the wire", ask them for prices. too many people base processing costs on the " labor is free since I was just sitting around" concept... its flawed, incredibly flawed

**mthomasdev** · 10-10-2015, 03:55 PM

The big question is "What, if anything, did you pay for it?"

**myekem** · 10-11-2015, 05:57 AM

Probably just advertising the machine, I checked out the site and they work good. Never heard of them before. Thanks.

**joebeers** · 10-11-2015, 10:34 AM

Myekem, the advertise under my post is not from me~ I also found this one: How To Strip Bx Cable 1 | Videos Cristianos » Melodiaristina.COM

**myekem** · 10-12-2015, 07:16 AM

In that case, if it is not advertising and you are serious... My opinion would be go with the first one. Looks like a better setup than the other because it catches the aluminum in a pan and everything is enclosed. By watching videos it looks like the colored tubes the wire goes through are changeable for different sizes. If you like the other setup that uses a sharp blade, that video is from a seller in Ontario that I would recommend (Bluedog Wire Strippers | #1 Source for Wire Stripping Machines). I bought my wire stripper (BWS-50-SAR) from them and the support was great. The biggest problem you have is that you will need two machines to do that job, the BWS-BX30a from the second video (or the one from the first post) will ONLY take off the aluminum coating allowing you to strip it with a wire stripper. So close to $6k US for the two machines. I googled prices in Ontario and BX is $0.90 and Bare Bright is $2.61. If you do it yourself you may come out of it after all of the machines, power and labor with an extra $6-7K and a lack of sleep.

**myekem** · 10-13-2015, 06:05 PM

Must have been a one hit wonder..

**AMSrecycling** · 03-27-2016, 10:27 PM

What's your diameter? If the diameter is within 1-25 mm, small model is enough, the price of Amisy small kind is about six hundred dollars.

**nutpie** · 03-28-2016, 08:24 AM

I say sell as is. Way too much work to strip with that volume. Do the math, insulated wire + steel or alum. jacket - price of machine - labor - pickup, drop off transportation. Does it make sense? Do the math and decide for yourself.

**hobo finds** · 03-28-2016, 01:39 PM

So if it was steel jacket over insulated wire would it go as copper content, or copper bearing? And if it was aluminum could you get dirty aluminum price for it as is?

**Jedimaster** · 03-28-2016, 06:35 PM

My yard here in the uk gives 16 pence per kg for this stuff I've spent many hours in front of the t.v. hand stripping this stuff not fun lol

**bigburtchino** · 03-29-2016, 07:08 PM

Armor Cable or AC- Thought it might be helpful for a little explanation on types of Armor Cable used for electrical wiring. Often just called BX or (armor clad, flexible metal conduit, AC, AFC, HFC, MC and more) that has individual insulated wire conductors with the metal "sheathing" providing protection to the wire conductors. People will call all armor cable "BX", when actually there are different types of armor cable, BX is a brand name or trademark just like "Romex".

BX - has a bonding strip integrated into of sheathing metal (starting in 1959) to allow the casing to be grounded. There is no ground wire.
MC - has a individual ground wire and the casing is not grounded.
HFC - has both a individual ground wire and a copper bonding strip in sheathing.
AC - has "paper" covering surrounding the insulated wire conductors and will have a bonding strip.

AC cable can have steel or aluminum used as the armor sheathing. With 12 or 14 AWG insulated copper wire being the most common wire gauges used. With one or more "hot" wires, one neutral and a ground wire (insulated or noninsulated).

If you have just a small amount of AC cable to scrap out I would use a cutting tool (your choice), cut the cable into manageable (safe) lengths (3 to 4 feet long). Remove the copper conductor wires, strip the insulation to get bare bright copper. If the metal sheathing has a copper bonding wire, you can also remove that as well and sell as #1 copper. If steel clad is used goes into shred bucket or aluminum clad in "aluminum" bucket (depends on yard classifications). You could have 2 or 3 types of scrap metal to sell (make the most with the time you can spend, with very little effort).

If you have a lot of AC cable (100,000 pounds is a lot), sell to scrap yard or wire broker as is. Take the money and move on to next bigger and better scrap adventure!