How to go about stripping thin wire?

Hi guys,

I have lots of thin wires lying around that I have some trouble stripping with my manual machine (sort of like the tnt tooling manual but cheaper). How do you guys go about striping really thin wire?

I wouldnt strip it and move on to the next project. Sell as is. Save your time

Originally Posted by greytruck

I wouldnt strip it and move on to the next project. Sell as is. Save your time

I agree with Greytruck, there's not much return for your effort in stripping small gauge wire. Nonetheless, if you have nothing better to do with your time, here is what I do.

Place a board on your lap. Holding the wire on the board with a pair of plyers, I shave the insulation off on a shallow angle with a razor knife (box cutter), moving the knife down the wire away from you. It takes a bit of practice, but you can strip almost any wire like this.

Most of my wire, I can strip with this machine:

BWS-25 | Bluedog Wire Strippers

There are a lot of similar product available online (probably cheaper too).

The small stuff, I strip using the technique outlined above. I save this for when I'm waiting for a pot to boil or whatever. It's something to do and it doesn't make a big mess.

For thin wire I think they use the 'two rollers' setup. It just two rollers, both driven off a electric motor.

One roller can be adjusted so that the gap between the rollers is the same as the thickness of the actual Copper wire that's inside the plastic insulation.
You feed the insulated wire in and it squashes the plastic off to each side of then copper wire.

Then after doing enough of it. You pick up the Copper wire and pull off the loose plastic insulation strips.

I had the idea of making one from two largish electric motors, just the end plates (Cast Iron) and the shaft with the Iron-Aluminium core and two bearings still set into then end plates.
Then drive both of them using some sprockets and chain and a electric motor. All of that in a frame and a setup tp adjust one roller.
I sorta wish I hadn't taken it all in as scrap now.... I have 250kgs of plastic coated Copper wire.

Does that roller setup work with stranded wire though? I heard it doesn't and the PSU cables are all stranded. Thanks anyway, I am considering building one myself, it shouldn't be too hard to build a roller press, or maybe rework an older manual press like the ones used in printing.

I have a machine for this except real real small wire that I will just put in the dirty pile like the tiny stuff in laptops and so forth

That's a good idea, I will save the next I get
Do the roller machines work on thin stranded wire though? It really isn't worth to build for bigger stuff as that can be stripped easily even with my manual wire stripper.

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

How about salvage some hard rollers out of the printers? Might even be able to re-purpose a motor or two that powers them.

I think the roller diameter would be too small if you used printer rollers.

Also, I think that it wouldn't be as good on stranded wire.

Here's a video I made in 2014 where I show how I strip solid copper wire with a pair of treadmill motors. As stated in the video, I will not strip any wire smaller than 12awg. I don't strip any vacuum cords, extension cords, light fixture cords, etc.. The stranded wire doesn't work in the treadmill stripper as the copper strands compress with the insulation. This doesn't allow the insulation to be smashed off of the copper. Also, as mentioned above, my time is too valuable to waste it stripping tiny cords or cables. I purchased a drill powered wire stripper in 2014 that can handle larger stranded cables. I have purchased large awg wire from a local electrician, stripped it, and sold the bare copper for a nice profit. I haven't done that for awhile and I really should get back to doing it. I have posted other videos in the video section. Check them out.

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

How about salvage some hard rollers out of the printers? Might even be able to re-purpose a motor or two that powers them.

What about using the shredders that come out of paper shredding machines? They are rollers with sharp blades.

What's the diameter of your wire? I know a wire stripping machine can strip wires of 2-60 mm.

What's the diameter of your wire? and what's the amount?