Easy-Read Wire Strippers
A simple modification makes stripping wires faster and more reliable.
When I’m wiring a house, I find it difficult to see the correct stripping gauge on the stripping tool because of my aging eyes. The problem is worse when there’s not enough light. I solved the problem by marking the 14-ga. stripping notch (the most common size) with a black felt-tip pen (on the front and the back side of the tool). With this modification, I now can easily strip a wire’s insulation without worrying about nicking the conductor by using a notch that’s too small.
—Ron Wlock, North Vancouver, B.C.
Edited and Illustrated by Charles Miller
From Fine Homebuilding #281
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Fantastic!!
Very nice!!
Lovely!
Good!
Most of the wiring I do is 12 gauge, so I hope you are only wiring lights to use mostly 14 Otherwise, my wire cutters always seem to be black, so I will try to find a white marker, since I too have aging eyes.
Nice tip. But I usually just count back from the cutter, 10, 12, 14, etc. to whatever gauge I am working with.
My 12 gauge is the one that has burn marks from the few times I stripped back a live wire. The same effect as a marker, just more permanent. ;-)
Thanks for this post!
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