That wire stripper technique my buddy swore by? It wrecked my speaker cable.

My friend Mark in Manchester told me to just use a box cutter to strip 12 gauge wire instead of a proper stripper. Said it was faster and he does it all the time. Tried it on some nice Mogami cable I was running for a PA build. Nicked the copper on three out of four wires. Had to trim back and redo everything. Waste of like 30 bucks worth of cable and an hour of my time. Now I just use the right tool for the job. Anyone else get burned by bad advice from a friend?

2 comments

2 Comments

jessec3922d ago

Use a proper technique with the box cutter if you're gonna go that route. Score it lightly instead of trying to cut through in one pass, it takes a couple tries but saves the copper.

angela_allen5322d ago

Score it light with the blade angled nearly parallel to the wire... almost like you're trying to shave off just the plastic jacket in thin strips. Takes a steady hand and a sharp blade, but once you feel the copper start to show you know you've gone too deep if you keep going. I've done it that way on hundreds of feet of mic cable and it works fine if you go slow, but honestly a proper stripper is like ten bucks and saves you the headache of worrying about nicked strands in a live sound setup.