Wire Stripping Advice

**wretherford** · 01-08-2018, 04:49 PM

I've had a large pile of Cat5 and Cat6 data cable dropped on me recently. I have a WSA TNT Tooling wire stripper, but it does not seem to do well on the small cables on the inside of the bundled Cat5. Any suggestion on how to strip efficiently? My salvage yard pays very poorly for insultated wire, but pretty well for copper, so its worth it if I can figure out a good method. Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

**hobo finds** · 01-08-2018, 04:55 PM

1st thing find out if your yard pays better for cat5 & cat6 wire than #2 insulated wire. Also see if you need to remove the ends in order to get the better price. The ends have some gold plate in them and can be mailed out to ewaste buyers. Then do the math if it is worth it to strip for the extra cash!

**miked** · 01-08-2018, 08:06 PM

Excellent advice from Hobo Finds. I have had some experience with wire stripping and unless you don't have anything better to do then ok or go look for something better to do.

At one time we had a member that paid a premium for cat 5 and cat 6 so go look for a better yard(no longer a member).

Show up with your load and be prepared to drive away with you wire still in your truck. There's nothing wrong with calling yards way outside of where you want to go just to get a good price to negotiate with. 73, Mike

**JJinLV** · 01-08-2018, 08:12 PM

I know there is a buyer in Wisconsin on this forum who pays around .30/lb higher than what I get locally in Las Vegas for Cat-5. Might be worth looking into the buyers section if your local yards aren't paying well. And yes to everything miked and hobo said!

**Sirscrapalot** · 01-09-2018, 02:12 AM

My advice when it comes to stripping is this...

Tip well.

Thank you an good night.

Sirscrapalot - Some times I even amaze myself with the things I think up.

**t00nces2** · 01-09-2018, 06:38 AM

Is it spooled or is it a birds nest? If spooled, give an approximate length (or exact, some wire has foot markers along the length) and list on CL or other selling board. If a birds nest, ball it up, find the best price you can, drop it off and move on.

**ScrapmanIndustries** · 01-09-2018, 08:24 PM

stripping anything less than 14 gauge even with a machine really doesn't seem worth it to me (anything smaller than 8 gauge is still questionable as well if your blades are dull or chewed up). If by a lot you mean thousands of pounds than maybe look into a used plastics granulator or a hammer mill normally used for grain and get a pretty small screen for it. If its just a 100 lbs or so even if you can only get low grade price for it its still better than using the wire as a dust collector for your shop or storage area.

**CopperheadDave** · 01-10-2018, 04:41 AM

Check out the copper mine model 102,,it strips some really small wire. If you get that wire a lot the $30 investment is worth it.

**sjones99** · 01-10-2018, 08:01 AM

Cat5 can be worth more than some #2 insulated because the outside coating contains teflon and thats why it is worth what it is...not the copper value

**KINGOFSCRAPPING** · 01-12-2018, 09:02 PM

i have found as weird as it sounds, boiling the wires at high heat, this doesn't work well on anything over a foot long

**eesakiwi** · 01-13-2018, 06:24 AM

I think with the small dia wire, with one single strand and a thin plastic coating.
They just use two driven rollers and squash it. This splits the plastic coating into two strands separate from the copper strand.
You just grab handfuls of this afterwards and rip out the plastic by hand.

There's the possibility of making such a setup using two AC motors, the shaft/bearings and end flanges to hold the bearings.
Chuck away (recycle) the outside housing with the Copper wires in it.
You would have to drive one roller,and have the other one setup so you can adjust the space between the two rollers.
Quite a bit of work to make.

**british** · 01-13-2018, 12:53 PM

Yea has that thought quite a few years ago the drawback seemed to be the outer coating and the fact a lot of the pairs of wires were "twisted" together.

May try it when i have the time!!