Any advice on how to SOFTEN the Insulation on wire?

I strip my wires with a razor blade / box cutter / utility knife, which ever name you prefer. I pull the wire and hold the blade steady, using a plastic cooler as a table (and a toolbox with wheels and a handle!), I let the wire slide through the cracks between the cooler and it's lid to keep the blade steady. This is my syatem, and without paying for a wire stripping machine, it is the best and easiest method I've tried, it always works for me.

I recently got a bucket full of some solid core insulated #1 - a thick enough Guage that, compared to what I'm usually stripping, it is worth nearly any trouble I will encounter to strip. However, the rubber insulation, which doesn't seem to be really any different from the usual, is hard, very hard. It has been almost impossible to strip using a razor blade.

How can I soften the insulation, so that my blade can slice through it like butter - like how easily a new razor blade will slice the rubber off every other kind of wire I strip?

Heat? I have both a Heat Gun and an Alcohol Burner (think of an Oil Lamp, but the wick is soaking in Denatured Alcohol instead of Oil.) Or perhaps some kind of chemical that I may be likely to have at home, or can purchase at a low enough cost that I am still coming up positive?



The going rate for Insulated #1 is about a buck a pound here, if the yard even pays out at 100% of advertised price on it. They seem to always find an excuse to dock the pay rate on wire, saying it isn't properly sorted, sometimes to as low as .50/lb.

Thanks for any advice or experience on the matter that anyone can share with me.

Pictures of wire in question? Being from AZ i would let it sit out side in the sun for a while. How much do you have?

Try putting a length of it in boiling water, then pull it out after a minute or two and try to strip it while wearing gloves. Not sure if that would work, but it could be an easy system.

Originally Posted by afmedic279

Pictures of wire in question? Being from AZ i would let it sit out side in the sun for a while. How much do you have?

If it were summer, I wouldn't even need a razor, just a moist towelette and the ****ed stuff would fall right off. It's starting to get cool out, I just spent the night (midnight-5am) scrapping in my backyard wearing sandals and my toes are quite cold. I think the temperature has been dropping to the low 70's, almost sweater weather BRRRRRRRRRRRR! (Irony is that I grew up in New England....my how the blood thins)

How much? Maybe 5 to 8 pounds, give or take. I strip about 80% of all wire I get ("Communication Wire" excluded, the kind with several tiny, individually insulated wires inside of the main, outer insulation.) The thin #2 wire you find inside of a TV (from inside of TVs and other items I break down) and power cords/similar are the only types of wire I regularly get, so wire like this, while not a big deal to most, is a rare occurrence for me. It's a little thicker than the solid core wire you find behind the control panels/whatever they're called on the front of Water Heaters.

I have about half a bucket of the same stuff, very hard to cut through. It is basically very old wire that the plastic has hardened and adhered to the wire itself. Unless I can figure out a way I am just going to turn it in as #1 insulated. Whatever method you use it has to loosen the plastic from the wire as well as soften the plastic.

Originally Posted by JayBear480

If it were summer, I wouldn't even need a razor, just a moist towelette and the ****ed stuff would fall right off. It's starting to get cool out, I just spent the night (midnight-5am) scrapping in my backyard wearing sandals and my toes are quite cold. I think the temperature has been dropping to the low 70's, almost sweater weather BRRRRRRRRRRRR! (Irony is that I grew up in New England....my how the blood thins)

How much? Maybe 5 to 8 pounds, give or take. I strip about 80% of all wire I get ("Communication Wire" excluded, the kind with several tiny, individually insulated wires inside of the main, outer insulation.) The thin #2 wire you find inside of a TV (from inside of TVs and other items I break down) and power cords/similar are the only types of wire I regularly get, so wire like this, while not a big deal to most, is a rare occurrence for me. It's a little thicker than the solid core wire you find behind the control panels/whatever they're called on the front of Water Heaters.

Not sure if this would help, but have you tried a hook blade instead of a straight blade? It's what I use to cut roofing shingles which are probably about as thick as the coating on the wire you're referring to. If its 70 out (which you should know is not cold coming from New England ) and the rubber coating is warm a hook blade should work much better. You just have to make sure and pull up on the blade as you slide it down the wire, otherwise it will keep getting caught up. Hope this helps.

You say it's solid, so can you crush it? A hammer might do it, but that sounds exhausting. I've seen people make an apparatus with 2 rollers that crush/split the insulation.

MEK, or methyl ethyl ketone will soften it up. It's been my experience it makes a gummy mess and isn't worth it. YMMV.

You could try heating the wire itself and letting the insulation soften from the inside out.

With the real thick stuff, I usually anchor it between two solid points about waist high. I use a razor blade knife, hold it towards me and walk backwards. We demoed a restaurant a while back and pulled over 700lbs of this stuff out of the ground. It wasn't solid core, but was very large ,diameter braided wire. The largest was about the size of my thumb and the smallest was the size of my pinkie finger. We anchored it between two scissor lifts and backed them up to pull it tight. We were able to do 100ft at a time at about 5-10min each. The trick is to pull it really tight, have a sharp blade, and pull towards you.

Originally Posted by scrappinlife

With the real thick stuff, I usually anchor it between two solid points about waist high. I use a razor blade knife, hold it towards me and walk backwards. We demoed a restaurant a while back and pulled over 700lbs of this stuff out of the ground. It wasn't solid core, but was very large ,diameter braided wire. The largest was about the size of my thumb and the smallest was the size of my pinkie finger. We anchored it between two scissor lifts and backed them up to pull it tight. We were able to do 100ft at a time at about 5-10min each. The trick is to pull it really tight, have a sharp blade, and pull towards you.

That might work with soft insulation, but this stuff he has (and I have about a half bucket) the insulation is VERY hard. In its current state it is like trying to strip concrete insulation off of the wire.

Another thought is try freezing it, it may make it brittle and break easier than trying to soften it. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Originally Posted by hobo finds

In Arizona stripped wire needs to be turned in with a business account! Just wanted to make sure you knew that before you stripped it....

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Wow, sucks to be in Arizona with that kind of regulation. Glad we have not regressed to that level here in TX.