Is there an easy or low effort way to do this for scrap wire? "Clean" wire is better than "dirty" wire from a scrap stand point.
Scott
Is there an easy or low effort way to do this for scrap wire? "Clean" wire is better than "dirty" wire from a scrap stand point.
Scott
Look into drill powered wire strippers. First page of Google didn't show me the one I was looking for though.
Attach a piece of unistrut to a board or table so it's sticking up in the air, hang the wire from the strut, and pass it through a socket with a Razer blade on the end of it. You can use a beam clamp to adjust tension on the wire. Once you get it started, wind the wire around a drill bit and go to town.
If you're not dealing with spools of wire, you can possibly use acid. Muriatic acid (definitely double check my memory here) from the pool supply place will eat most insulation and leave the wire.
Fire?
Burning the insulation is terribly toxic please don't do that.
Fire is not only bad for a bunch of things, but plenty of yards will refuse burned wire.
I have that cheap TNT (?) stripper tool you can either hold by hand or put in a vice. Works pretty good and just beats trying to strip it by hand with a box cutter.
eBay has plenty of powered wire strippers if you get a good bit of it.
Don't burn it! Scrapper near me used to do that, stinky, caustic, just bad. Besides, the melt temp of copper is ~1800 'f, wood fires can get that high.
Unless you're sitting on a free dump truck of wire, it seems labor intensive for the $$$ return.
Pretty sure you've found the primary intersection of meth-heads and folks that post on youtube with this thread subject.
Talk to your local tweeker community. Those guys have it down to a fine art.
If you are talking about 10-20 AWG, not worth the time. It is too thin, even if you stripped it there is no weight there. Battery cable sized stuff is worth the work. Check out the price of clean wire per pound and figure out how much money you are talking about.
Not worth the effort and time to bother doing honestly.
I just take the stuff in five gallon buckets along with everything else.
I don't know if it is a thing anymore, but grocery stores used to have a lot of dry ice as surplus from stuff shipped in. Freeze the wire and maybe the insulation will shatter like when you take sound deadening material off of car floorpans?
Another would be to just run it through a series of rollers where the harder metal would be separated from the plastic insulation.
Put a bunch in a steel drum with a bunch of crushed gravel and let it rotate like a stone polisher.
What quantities of wire are you talking about? I like this guys sluice box idea. Youtube is polluted with options.
A box of mice?
In most cases it's not worth the effort, just scrap it with the insulation still on it.
I made one with the cutting wheel from a pipe cutter. It works very well for larger wire. I bought one for smaller gauge. Where are you located? If anywhere near Northeast PA, you are welcome to use either of mine.
I split the cost of a StripMeister with my electrician. Ive run less than 50# (net) through it but think it's pretty neat. My electrician has run probably 600#+ throuh it and thinks it's awesome. The model we got is powered by a drill (not included) and is pretty simple: Frame, guide(s), and a pipecutting wheel with adjustable tension. If you are planning on running weight, it is worth it. IIRC it retailed ~ $180.
Lots of DIY solutions. Almost bought one off Ebay.
Seems like a DIY option or doing it by hand would be the best option to start then use the proceeds from that to purchase a stripping unit. (stripmeister or any of the million knockoffs)
Thats my plan any how. Save 25% from each scrap run to buy a faster/easier machine. I say that now but I feel a DIY approach might work as well too. There are some videos of guys making stripping machines from treadmills even!
Chances are you're only going to be making a few more pennies per hour, if you factor the cost of making some sort of stripping machine plus your labor time into the project.
There are plans on Thingiverse.com for solutions you can print and assemble.
Wish.com has them available to buy.
finally, you're all slipping, the ultimate answer is always, Shotgun?
If it is a cable (AWG #6 or larger), stretch it out under tension and run a razor knife with a fresh blade along it. (as if you are stripping it, with the blade along the cable, not perpendicular to it)
If it is wire, don't bother.
You'll need to log in to post.
