A chat with an old electrician at a job site changed how I run wire

I was pulling cable in a 1970s apartment building in Portland last month and this retired guy walked by and told me I was bending my wires too sharp. He showed me a trick using a coffee can as a guide for the radius and now I don't get as many callbacks for bad connections. Anyone else pick up random tips from strangers on site?

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1 Comment

the_jessica1mo ago

Oh man, I had a guy in a Home Depot parking lot tell me I was using the wrong kind of tape for pulling wire through conduit. He was like "son, that duct tape is gonna melt in the summer heat." He was right. Now I only use the sticky kind that actually holds and I don't have to redo half my pulls. Coffee can trick sounds way more useful though, I could have used that last week when I bent a wire so sharp it looked like a hairpin.