Is anyone aware of a good Cable stripper for insulation removal from service conductors such as 4/0 URD? I have noticed that my local POCO uses a "4 X 4" Stripper similar to this
http://www.hilineco.com/pdf/211-218.pdf Does anyone have any preferences or suggestions?
Looks pricey, and would require different blade/heads for each conductor.
Personally, for all types of wire I just use a linemans knife if I can find it in the mess in the front of the van. Or a utility knife... Score shallow grove around the insulation of the conductor, than slash the rest legth-wise, and peel like a bannana. With some practice the knife never touches the conductor, and just as fast maybe. But then again, I am not doing it all day long either, if I were doing line work I might think a fancy ergo tool would be a wrist saver.
I've used those before. They're nice if you're on a job where you have to strip a lot of large cable. You don't have to adjust the blades and you don't have to measure how much you want to strip. Some cable strippers have blade adjustments and you have to try it out on a piece of scrap cable first to make sure you have the right cutting depth.
I use one and like it a lot. I don't have to change blades because it is set up for 4/0, 3/0, 2/0 and #6. That pretty much covers my most common stripping jobs. When I work with 250-750 I break out the Klein knife.