Most cables are wrapped in what amounts to a protective tube around the wire to improve safety and extend the operating life of the cable. Cable stripper, also called wire stripper, is a tool used to strip the outside coating of a cable to expose the active wire underneath for installation. Usually, this tool is used when two wires need to be connected or when a connector needs to be applied to the end of a coated wire.
Cable stripping tools are usually hand-held metal tools that look similar to pliers, except they feature a cutting end and stripping hole instead of a grip. Most cable strippers come with cable cutters already built into the tool. Other cable strippers may have specifically-sized holes that are designed to perfectly strip wires of varying sizes. Using a specially-sized cable stripper can make a proper cable stripping job easier to carry out. Professionals such as electricians or cable installation specialists often use size-specific cable strippers that are designed to strip a precise type of cable commonly used in their industries.
How To Use A Cable Stripper
Stripping a cable with a cable stripper is typically easy to do, and mistakes in stripping can be corrected easily. Older, brittle, or weathered wires inside a cable can make a successful stripping job more difficult than usual. Unless the amount of available cable is limited, a botched cable strip job can be remedied simply by clipping the badly stripped edge off with a wire cutter and re-stripping the cable.
What Types Of Wire Strippers
Cable strippers come in a variety of designs to support the diversity of their usefulness. Handheld designs are most convenient and inexpensive, but benchtop varieties are manufactured to assist in high-volume stripping applications. Articulation of the stripper ranges between manual, electrical, and pneumatic power sources.
A simple manual wire stripper is a pair of opposing blades much like scissors or wire cutters. The addition of a center notch makes it easier to cut the insulation without cutting the wire. This type of wire stripper is used by rotating it around the insulation while applying pressure in order to make a cut around the insulation. Since the insulation is not bonded to the wire, it then pulls easily off the end. This is the most versatile type of wire stripper.
Another type of manual wire stripper is very similar to the simple design previously mentioned, except this type has several notches of varying size. This allows the user to match the notch size to the wire size, thereby eliminating the need for twisting. Once the device is clamped on, the remainder of the wire can simply be pulled out, leaving the insulation behind.
How To Choose A Wire Stripper
The quality of a stripped wire is largely determined by the quality of the tooling selected. Properly-sized tools are the easiest way to provide a high-quality exposed conductor, and many wires are required to be labelled with gauge information. Another determination of wire quality includes the strip length. Devices like switches and receptacles will have a strip gauge, and automated machines will have a clear adjustment mechanism to ensure accurate wire and strip lengths.
Fiberstore provides a range of fiber tools, our complete line of fiber optic strippers feature more than 40 products. To check which of our wire strippers will suite your particular wire sizes, scroll down to view all our wire strippers or contact our sales. And if you can’t find it here, we can custom build one for you!
