Fine wire strippers

[cteno4]

 I use a lot of 30awg wrapping wire for little stuff like leds and such. At like a half cent a foot is like 5-10x cheaper than just about anything else out there, very compact, comes in like 12 colors and is tinned stranded wire so a very good conductor and solders super easily. its the perfect stuff to wire up LED circuits for structures and such as it can take a half an amp for short wiring that is done in structures and such, but i never run more than a few leds on this stuff.

 

Only rub is the insulation is nice and tough and a bit slick so trying to strip this fine wire can be tricky. regular V jaw strippers work well, but you do need to watch that the stop is set well to get it to cut well and usually its hard to strip by pulling with just your finger tips. Gauged U jaw strippers rarely go down to 30 and usually dont do well as tolerances are tough down there. Mechanical grabbing strippers sort of work, but the jaws can really muck up the wire. also all of these forms of cutters usually at least nick the wire if not cut into it pretty good at times. The tinned wrapping wire is a bit more forgiving being tinned, non tinned stranded wire in these tiny gauges you may only have 5 strands and break one or two and bad news.

 

Also with all these forms of strippers, trying to strip a uniform like 3mm off all the time is a slow matter to look closely on where it is each time. some strippers have stops built in, but these dont work on tiny ends, they are meant for larger gauges and stripping like 10mm.

 

I finally found this little guy.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ICLVN4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

its got a great set of 4 blades that come in in a diamond pattern from all 4 sides when you squeeze it. the blade depths can be set for 20-30g (there are other models with larger and even smaller settings) by turning the little ring at the front where you slip the wire in. then the slide gauge lets you set the depth of your strip! so you just slide the wire in the hole until it stops, squeeze and pull! you can even just use finger tip pressure to pull the wire as the 4 blade cut really does a nice job of cutting most all the insulation. I looked closely under the magnifying glass and it does not look like it cut into the wire at all! Most Jaw strippers require you to wrap wire around a finger to get enough friction to pull the wire thru. I was able to strip both ends of a 15mm piece of wire 2mm with just my fingertips!

 

great news is with the stop set all the way forward you can even just strip off about 1mm if you want easily!

 

only bad news is the suckers cost $34, but for a quality tool that does this job that no others do well and it nails something i do a lot I am more than willing to pay for it. Even though plastic it looks to be pretty good quality and reviews have it seeming to hold up well. 

 

any a happy stripper, er wire stripper here!

 

jeff

Edited April 2, 2015 by cteno4

[mrp]

I finally found this little guy.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ICLVN4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Thank you for posting this Jeff.

 

I’m also on a life-long search for a good wire stripper.  For a long time my favourite was the Stripax Professional but - as you say - it really can’t handle small diameter wires with hard slippery insulation.  Then recently I started using the Engineer PA-06 which works beautifully but - as you say - stripping each wire to the same length is a total PITA.

 

But spare a thought for those of us out in the far reaches…  Including all the various add-on fees and charges, Amazon want to charge me AUD$97.48 for it.  Ouch.

[cteno4]

mrp

 

hunt for the perfect stripper! sounds like a bad soft porn movie!

 

pm me, i can see about ordering you one and just shipping it out to you, im guessing like $5-8 to ship it airmail to you from the us.

 

so far i love this baby for little wires, but only done a few dozen wires so far! but doing them the same length is a charm!

 

jeff

[tossedman]

Found this link a while back. Make your own. There's a comment at the bottom where a fella used a large nail clipper and a small file to cut a v shape grove in the clippers. He had to do it a few time to get it just the right size, but the errors work for other wires that are too small to strip. Works every time without a strand of wire cut he says.

 

Haven't gotten around to trying either yet though so your mileage may vary.

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

Edited April 3, 2015 by tossedman

[cteno4]

Interesting, but the little sucker I posted is super nice as it lets you easily set a uniform strip length. You could do this with this home made one an just make a fixed depth. Does look like it strips well!

 

Jeff

[Lawrence]

These are very good little tools, I use one at work for particularly small wire.  For the normal sort of wire that I use for general layout wiring I use Knipex KPX1301160 electricians pliers, ideal for stripping and crimping small core wire

[cteno4]

Lawrence,

 

Thanks that's good to hear, they seem to be working well on the 30awf wrapping wire and 28 and 30 awg stranded wire and hope they will hold up. Big Bennie is the depth gauge to get the same depth stripped consistently.

 

Jeff

[tossedman]

Opened a christmas gift this morning and found a pair of infinitely adjustable wire strippers for wire up to 14 gauge. Here's a link. They work great.

 

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=73559&cat=1,43456,43400,73556

 

I have to admit that this store (there's one ten minutes from my house) has taken more than its share of my money for tools. 

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

[cteno4]

Ooooh love the adjustment knob! Can't have too many wire strippers! Someone knows you too well!

 

Jeff

[tossedman]

Yeah that knob would let you adjust down to the most minute wire gauge that you can imagine. And I do drop subtle hints every now and then.

 

Todd

Edited December 25, 2015 by tossedman

[cteno4]

She seems quite good at catching them!

 

Jeff

[tossedman]

I always find that a good link is a good hint.

[tossedman]

Showed her a video of a laser cutter today. She thought that was pretty cool but she's never seen the price of one.

[cteno4]

That's the way, break it in gently, show her the cool things she could do with it for her hobbies...

 

Jeff

[cteno4]

just an update, Ive been using this little stripper a lot lately with 26-30g wires and I’m still in love with them! I’ve been using these little strippers for like 4 years now and they are working as good as the day I got them. They never break wire strands and I so love being able to quickly set my strip length and so a bunch exactly the same. it’s also such an easier pull pulling straight away and not at a right angle. Dialing in your gage is so much simpler than trying to hit the right groove all the time. Really a jewel of a tool.
 

They recently went up a little in price, but for what they do so well it’s worth it as I expect it will last a long time.

 

Cheers

 

jeff