My first experience with new wire stripper - Page 3

mine really eats up power cords. those are one of my favorites. i split the "tv style" power cords down the middle and run the two pieces through individually. then grab the insulation in one hand and the copper in the other and pull. the one piece computer power cords will work in this stripper also, but I dont strip those anymore.

The tv wire is a bit tuff. The tape comes off with a little muscle.

I bought the wire stripper a while back and used the lever on the copper wire inside tv's. It seemed to work good. I'm still getting used to using the drill. I need to tighten some of the parts that seem to have loosened.

It seems to me that with the smaller wire that it wouldn't be worth it to get the copper out because you loose the weight from the insulation on the wire. I go from .90 (insulated wire) to 2.70 ( number two copper). So you get about 3 time more in the price but how much weigh do you lose? I may have to do another experiment and share my results with the rest of the forum.

Is there a trick to the #2 wires? Of the ones that are big enough to fit in the stripper, they seem to cut to far in, and I end up picking all the pieces of copper out of the insulation. Seems like more time than it's worth?

I took a block of wood, about four or five inches long, two inches thick and drilled holes for the different sizes of wire I'm going to strip. Then, I just screwed a deck screw so that it comes out the center of the hole. I tighten until it just barely pierces the insulation and strip. Cost me almost nothing because I had the materials left over from other projects. I saw this stripper on ebay and thought, "Oh, there's gotta be a cheeper way."

great. Ive been waiting months for info on this stripper and small wire. Im perticularly intrested in comp wire like power supply wire since my yard pays only .30 for it.

Originally Posted by mrsamsonite

It seems to me that with the smaller wire that it wouldn't be worth it to get the copper out because you loose the weight from the insulation on the wire. I go from .90 (insulated wire) to 2.70 ( number two copper). So you get about 3 time more in the price but how much weigh do you lose? I may have to do another experiment and share my results with the rest of the forum.

i did this experiment a few years ago,hand stripping wire. I did 30.7 lbs of random copper(not tinned) computer wires before i got 10lbs of insulation.(that took about 6 hours) That gave me about a 32.5% loss of weight. So with your .90/2.70 price rate you will be making 2x the $$ stripping your wire.I have more time than money, so I think that is worth my time.

Olddude- I redid this experiment with my "drill operated cable wire stripper" (i used the hand crank,not the drill) and got about 2% less waste and it took about 1.5 hours. Increase of 400% in productivity. well worth the time and $100 i paid for the stripper. BUT it takes a little time and patience to do the smaller stuff. Best thing is to do like Miked, just barely cut into the insulation then grab insulation in one hand and the copper in the other and then pull them apart. Only takes a second to separate them and the copper dosent get smooshed into the insulation and cut into little pieces. Good luck and if you have any questions about this stripper I will be happy to try and answer them.

Just ordered mine today. I should have it some time next week. I hope I can adjust it to do the first cut on romex. I have several hundred pounds taking up space. My first bucket of bare bright should pay for the stripper. 92$ with shipping. I'm actually hoping to pay for it with all the #2 insulated I have that would normally go as insulated.

Originally Posted by ecogeek

I took a block of wood, about four or five inches long, two inches thick and drilled holes for the different sizes of wire I'm going to strip. Then, I just screwed a deck screw so that it comes out the center of the hole. I tighten until it just barely pierces the insulation and strip. Cost me almost nothing because I had the materials left over from other projects. I saw this stripper on ebay and thought, "Oh, there's gotta be a cheeper way."

AWESOME idea. I'm going to try it tomorrow on some wire I have.

I was just about to break down & try to make this:

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/tools...-stripper.html

but I'm really too small-time for that to be worth my time building... however, a deck screw & a chunk of wood is a time investment I can surely spare!

THANKS!

I am sitting on a large load of wire. Insulation is way to thick and hard to strip by hand. Im interested in getting this wire stipper but I got a few questions first.
I have wire up to 1/2" and wire with thick, almost hard plastic insulation. Will this machine take wire this big? And is it strong enough to cut the hard insulation? I'd appreciate any help, I don't want to by this if it wont get the job done. thanks

I have about 300 lbs, I paid $200. Either way I will make profit, but I would still like to strip it.

It's two different kinds. One is 1/2" with only a 16th" insulation that is to hard to strip with a knife or the drywall screw trick.
the other is 1/2" with 1/4" insulation. Softer insulation but way too thick to strip any other way.

As long as the machine pushes hard enough against the wire and the blade is sharp it should work, I would think...
Is there anything that you haven't been able to strip with it?

Thanks miked, I decided to buy one for this job, I was going to try your table saw idea if it didn't work. But it did work.

Here is my review on this stripper:

$55 plus $15 shipping on ebay. "Crank Arm Operated CABLE WIRE Stripping Machine"
it looked a lot bigger online, but size doesn't matter. You get the hang of it pretty quickly. Wires the size of the red wires that go from the tv tube to the flyback transformer strip the fastest. any smaller is more difficult, but can be done. I mounted it to my table and drilled a hole about 1" in front of it. I feed the wire up through the bottom of the table to the machine to keep it straight.

The blade was not "razor" sharp, as I assumed it would be. And seems to cut with the pressure and not the sharpness. this makes stripping extention cords difficult, because the pressure needed to strip the outer layer of insulation, cuts through the inner insulated wires. Making a mess. Maybe mine was used before and the blade was dull? did anyone else get one with a "razor" sharp edge? I might look into buying a new blade later.

CAREFULL!! when doing larger wires I hold the wire about 5" from the machine with my left hand pull to straighten it out and keep it on track. It grabbed my glove once and gave me a scare. Ripped the finger off my glove. I got to worried about going fast. I slowed down now, and am more carefull.

It handled wire as big as welding leads. And It easily stripped the 1/2" wire I was talking about, hard and thick insulation. Chopped it into about 15' lengths with my Ax, and in about an hour I had 100 lbs of BB CLEAN COPPER! This machine paid for itself on this one job for me.

Originally Posted by olddude

great. Ive been waiting months for info on this stripper and small wire. Im perticularly intrested in comp wire like power supply wire since my yard pays only .30 for it.

I use a pull through stripper instead of a crank stripper, but my experience may help.

power supplies have 16, 18, 20, and 22 gauge wire, sometimes a few others.
20 and 22 gauge don't separate from the casings well and don't seem worth it to me

use the pliers style stripper to take a little off the end to make it easier to load, sometimes i twist the copper so it wont frazzle
have fun