I was stripping wire wrong for a decade until a guy in Tacoma called me out

I always used my lineman's pliers to strip 12/2 Romex, pinching and pulling the sheathing off. Last week, an old timer on a job site in Tacoma saw me do it and said, 'You're crushing the ground wire doing that.' He showed me how to use the cable ripper built into my strippers, just a quick slice and pull. I tried it and the ground wire stayed perfectly round. I've probably been weakening grounds in hundreds of houses without knowing. Anyone else have a basic tool trick they missed for way too long?

3 comments

3 Comments

allen.amy7d ago

Yeah, I was doing the pinch and pull thing too. That cable ripper trick is a total game changer.

troystone7d ago

Wait, you're calling it a cable ripper? That's a new one. We always called them cable strippers where I'm from. A ripper sounds like something that tears it out by force. The stripper tool is meant to cleanly cut the outer jacket without nicking the wires inside. Using the wrong name might get you the wrong tool at the hardware store.

oliver_adams7d ago

Guess I've been calling it the wrong thing for years then. I probably got the name mixed up with something else and it just stuck. Explains the weird looks I sometimes get at the store when I ask for one. My bad, the stripper tool is definitely a lot less violent than a ripper.