Wire cutters and strippers, a short guide

At some point you will need to cut and strip some wires, some hints and tips 

Round blade cutters or shears

Two main types available, one has straight blades and the other has circular ones, the important difference between them is, the circular blades do not crush wires flat when you cut them, so they stay circular, that can make it easier to strip the ends of the wire after, also I find I can exert a lot more pressure using this type of cutter over the straight type, you might see the shears used to cut thick cables are of the curved blade type.

Straight or diagonal cutters

If you are buying the straight blade type, there is one caveat, there are two distinct types of this kind of cutter, one is a standard diagonal and the other and better one is a flush cutter. The flush cutter will pay for itself as soon as you start cutting the tails off of cable ties (zip ties), ask anyone who has had the misfortune of cutting themselves on that tiny piece of razor sharp plastic left poking out, flush cutters will not leave this little barb.

Wire strippers

Like cutters, more than one kind available, but basically they come down to two types, automatic and manual. With automatic you put the end of the wire in, squeeze and retract (see image below), the process is automated, this is particularly handy when working with fine wires, you can also set a gauge on the cutters to set the length of insulation removed, the automatic strippers come in models where the cable is fed from the side or the front.

Manual strippers require you insert the wire into the correct sized cutting hole to the required depth, close the jaws and manually pull the insulation of the wire. These kinds of stripper are by far more common, they are easy to use and can be had in various physical sizes so if you are working in a smaller area, the automatic strippers simply will not fit.

It is inevitable with the manual strippers so experimenting and possible repetition until you get an idea of the wire sizes, also if you wear glasses you may find some of the letters very small. Manual strippers can also be found incorporated into other tools, such as terminal crimpers.

Size matters

Wires are measured on two scales, AWG (American Wiring Gauge) and mm2, this is only applicable for the marked manual stripping tools. A second point about size is getting the correct size cutters and strippers for the size of cables you´ll likely be working with and that physically fit your hands better.

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