I was recently reading a US DIY Electrical
book and it had a picture of a tool called a cable ripper, for use with NM type cable.
Tell me, do you own and use one of these tools, or do you prefer to use sidecutters to
strip your cables?.

I prefer the strippers made for NM cable that cut the outer jacket. After cutting you just slide the jacket off instead of sliding the ripper up the cable and then ripping it downward toward the end. The pair I have is from Ideal with a cutter for 14-2 and also 12-2, Klein also makes a pair.

Trumpy....i have 2 in my bag.
http://www.mytoolstore.com/klein/74018.html

When I did a lot of NM-B work I would use the cable ripper but I would cut off one side of the bottom so you did not have to slide it up the cable, good when cutting in for panels.

Do the stripers that Jim mentioned work to strip long lengths?

We use a utility knife http://www.mytoolstore.com/klein/44100.html

when we strip romex. It is much quicker and takes a little practice to get used to but once you use it, its faster than using a cable ripper. Anybody else?

[This message has been edited by Sandro (edited 02-01-2003).]

I'm with Sandro. I have always used a utility knife and its pretty much standard practice here in the San Jose/San Francisco area. We always strip the cable after they are installed in the boxes.

Curt

When I wired new housing(many years ago)I used a sheetrock knife, it was much faster then a stripper

iwire,

Yes they do work for long lengths, although I sometimes will make 2 or 3 cuts and slide off each piece. I still think that this is faster than a ripper and much safer than a utility knife.

The NM cutters also have a stripper in the tip along with a looping hole.

The rippers seemed OK for __-2 cable, but were not good for __-3. (As in 12-2 vs. 12-3...)

A knife does a nice, quick job. However...

Sharp blades slice;
Dull blades slip
Be real careful when
Doing the ol' cable-strip!

Lighthouse,
I am probably going to sound pretty dumb, by saying this, but, How do you use the Cable-
Ripper?.
Your help would be appreciated.

Trumpy...just slide it over the wire and pull down.i like it better then an utilty knife.but it's harder on 3 conductor cable as thinkgood said but still works ok


utilty knife.don't work to good on 3 conductor cable either.it can cut the wire real quick.(one slip)

Excuse me if I sound amatureish. Please understand that we don't use Romex here in Chicago. And it's been 10 years since I've touched the stuff. We used to just slit the first inch of the sheath open, reach in with our Kleins, grab the bare ground and pull. The outer sheath would split open as far as we needed to pull, without any damage to the other conductors. We would cut off the split sheath with our Kleins and go on to the next cable. It was easy, but most importantly FAST!