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Showerthought: that cheap coax stripper cost me a whole afternoon

I grabbed a no-name stripper from a discount bin for about $8 last month. The blade was dull right out of the package and it kept crushing the dielectric instead of cutting cleanly. I spent over four hours redoing connections on a single apartment job because the crimps kept failing. Ended up having to go buy a proper tool anyway and ate the cost of the call-back. What's your go-to stripper that actually holds up?
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3 Comments
robinson.adam
Yeah, I've got a whole drawer of cheap tools that owe me a day's pay. My personal low point was a stripper that basically just twisted the cable into a sad little braid. I finally broke down and got a Klein, and it felt like a miracle.
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adam_nguyen7
What's the worst damage a cheap tool has done for you? My old screwdriver stripped a head so bad I had to drill it out. That's when I learned the hard way.
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haydenharris
Sometimes you just get a bad tool. I've had cheap ones last for years.
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