How to strip a wire

By how to strip a wire we are talking about removing the plastic insulation from the copper wire at the end so you can make an electrical connection by soldering or a screw connection in a terminal.

You wont get far with any electronic or electrical project without having to strip a wire or two. I must have stripped thousands over the years using all sorts of tools and body parts. First warning don’t use your teeth you’ll seriously damage them. Just get a tool of some sort. You know it makes sense.

If your only stripping wires occasionally you might not want to buy a wire stripper and you can make do by using something you already have. A knife for instance.

How to strip wires with a knife.

There are two ways to use a knife to strip a cable. The first way is to lightly score around the plastic. You can do this by lying the cable on a flat surface and rolling the cable gently under the knife blade. The idea is that you only want to score the plastic insulation and not cut through to the copper wires.

If you do make it through to the the copper wires you will probably be damaging them to some extent. You don’t want to be cutting through any of the stands. If you do this you’ve gone too far.

You just need to make a mark on the plastic insulation and them pull the plastic away.

Depending on how thick the cable is in the first place you may be able to do it with your fingers or failing that, if its thick cable use pliers.

The second way is to lay the cable on a flat surface and score down the length starting from where you want the insulation to be stripped and scoring to the end getting slightly deeper when you get to the end.

You can then pull the two sides apart. You can then use the knife to trim off the two bent back bits of plastic insulation. This method is particularly favoured when you have plastic cable with individual cables inside like a mains cable with three individual cables inside.

How to use scissors to strip a wire

Take a pair of scissors and have them half opened to make a “V” shape, then push the cable into the “V” and slightly close the scissors. Now rotate the wire around without closing the scissors. Just try and keep them in the same “V” shape. You should see a slight “nick” in the plastic insulation.

Keeping the same “V” shape pull the cable so the “nick” gets trapped in the centre of the “V” and as you lightly pull the cable the insulation will get stripped.

This is my least favourite way to strip cables as its easy to cut too far into the cable and damage the copper wire strands. If you do this just cut off the damage and start again fresh. Be careful though as you can soon end up with no cable left to strip if you keep messing up.

You might be lucky enough to have a pair of scissors that already have the capability to strip wires that you hadn’t even noticed.

How to use pliers to strip a wire

You can use pliers to strip a wire depending on how sharp they are. You need the inside edge to be capable of cutting slightly into the plastic insulation and not just to hold it without making a mark. If you can make a slight cut into the insulation you can use that part of the pliers in a similar way as to using scissors and then pull the cable against the semi clamped pliers.

As they aren’t as sharp as the scissors its a bit more forgiving on the insulated cable and once it starts to give you can pull the end of the plastic insulation off with the end of the pliers.

Using cable strippers to strip wire

This is the easiest way, there are three main types of wire stripers. There are the cheapest ones where there are a range of half circle varying size holes which you match up to the wire and clamp them with your hand and pull. If you guess at the right size hole first time these do a decent job.

Next up are the automatic wire strippers. These have some kind of mechanical action to them. They clamp, cut and remove the insulation in a single action. These usually do a good job without much messing about and if you’ve got a lot of wires to strip or do it regularly you’ll appreciate using these.

The last, best and most expensive are the self adjusting, automatic wires strippers. These are the Rolls Royce of stripping wires. They will almost effortlessly strip insulated cables and the thing I like most about them is you can put a piece of three core mains cable in them and they will strip the plastic outer off leaving the three insulated wires. The put then in and the three of them are all stripped at the same time as well. I don’t think it could be made much easier.

Stripping mains cable

If you are stripping mains cable obviously make sure the power is switched off. In fact doubly make sure the power is switched off. You know what can happen if you don’t. If its something you’re going to do a lot you would be well advised to get something like this.

It’s a non contact voltage detector. Turn it on an it will buzz and flash red when it’s near mains voltage.

Its cheap and quick and easy to use. You don’t even have to connect it to anything, just touch it to the insulated cable and if it lights you’ve got mains power in the cable. It’s a great fail safe and gives you piece of mind before you strip a mains cable.

Also make sure your not leaving any little cuts or cracks in the insulation as it can easily open up to reveal bare wires. Not what you want with mains electricity. Not only can it cause shocks but its also a massive fire risk. If you can’t do wire stripping properly on mains wire don’t bother at all. It’s not worth the risk.

Final words

What you use to strip cables depends on how often and how many you have to do. If you do it once in a blue moon you’re not going to want to buy cable strippers and you’ll find one of the ways mentioned here to do it. Like I used to do, however if its something you encounter a lot and for me electronic construction is my hobby.

I’m always building little and not so little projects and there’s always some wiring to be done on them. So I bought wire strippers years ago and I’m glad I did. Looking at the price, they are really not that expensive, even for a really good pair of automatic self adjusting ones and they save you a lot of time over the years.

Once you have you stripped wire if you are going to solder it to another wire you my find my article on How to solder wires together useful.

If your soldering them to connectors or plugs read my article here.