I agree with Tom. I use either single edged razor blade for thin stranded wire feeling when the blade just meets metal; or I use a rather expensive locking folding knife. I choose a blade 2 or 3 inches at most. I like the ones where it's a skeleton frame and a little bolt that you press with your thumb and the blade pivots forward. I also like when it is a single side to sharpen instead of having to work both sides to sharpen. Short of that, the smaller blade, 2 inch, on the Swiss Army knives is nice.
I may have to make many cutsand some are on 24g stranded. So losing strands is a large percentage of the whole. Or if it is a plated wire; such as silver plated copper, or the vastly greater gold plated silver, a well balanced locking blade can keep me from chopping the metal. I hardly ever fold them, just stick them to a large magnet mear my bench clamp. On Thu, 22 Mar 2007, Tom Fowle wrote: > There is a heavy contraversy around here about strippers. > > There are "automatic" ones from cheap tool places that have blades into which > you put the wire and which claim to adjust to many;sizes. > Some of them have a set of grippers on each half of the two ends of the > flat plier like handles. You put the wire between these sets of sharpish > grippers, holding it at right angles to the length of the plier like tool. > > As you squeeze the handles, the two sets of grippers grab ehe wire, and one > cuts the insulation. As you squeeze further, the grippers pull apart > and hopefully remove just the insulation you wanted, not any strands of wire. > > These, and other 'automatic' strippers can pinch fingers if you leave your > little > prescious haptors in the wrong places, but when you're used to them, > some of them work pretty well. > The more plastic on them the poorer they are. > > Many real technicians preferr the old fashioned type that have a bolt that you > move to allow the things to close just so far depending on what size > of wire you are stripping. If you get these adjusted properly they do well. > > The kind you find in hardware stores that are a plier like tool that strips > crimps, cuts, and cuts bolts are junk and are only for the > coarsest type of work. If you're only stripping #14 solid wire, they might > do. > > I most often use a sharp knife, being very carefull not to cut strands > especially when stripping small stranded wire. > > Radio shlock probably has a variety including the fancy automatic ones like > I first discribed. > > I've never found anything that does a consistantly good job on lots of wire > sizes. > > My brother, who is a retired electrician, always uses a sharp knife, > and he is so fast I can't even think about stripping before he has it done. > > Tom > > To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio.org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ Visit the new archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindhandyman/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindhandyman/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
