A generous Telephone Repairman gave me about 900ft. of six strand tele wire for my layout. I used the white and black wires for track wiring, the other four colors I will use for switches and misc. I tried several ways of removing the sheathing, utility, exacto, pen knife. But always ended up shaving the instulation of some wires. Some of my wire runs are 14ft. and it is a teadious task. I found the best tool to use is a sewing seam ripper, but I still needed to break the long point short as there was still some shaving. Since starting I have removed about 400ft. and the task hasn’t been to bad. Hope this tip helps others with this problem.
It’s not easy because the manufacturer didn’t intend for great amounts of jacket to be removed from the cable. I use wire strippers to very carefully cut through the jacket about every foot and pull the pieces off. Tedious, and I still nick the occassional wire. Remove a bit of jacket from one end and look to see if there’s a strong white thread running under the jacket. This is a stripping thread. Expose a few inches of it, get a good grip on it (try wrapping a few turns under the jaws of needlenose pliers) and pull it back against the jacket at a sharp angle. It should cut through the jacket. Stripping threads aren’t 100% effective either. Sometimes they don’t slice through the jacket and they sometimes break.
You’re all right. It can be very tedious. Since I did a lot of stripping cable for my job, I’ve found what I think is the best way to do so.
First I locate the spot on the cable that I want to strip the jacket back to, whether it is a foot or 10’ feet or more. At that point I hold the cable in one hand making a loop that looks like the letter “U”. That put’s tension on the outside of the cable jacket. Then I use an exacto knife (any very sharp bladed knife will work just as well) and draw the blade very gently accross the stretched portion of the cable jacket. Because of the tension the blade begins a cut and the tension actually pulls the jacket apart slightly, thereby preventing me from having to cut all the way through the jacket and therefore preventing me from cutting into the individual wire insulation.
Then I roll the cable slightly (either clockwise or counter clockwise) which puts tension on the uncut portion of the cable. And I continue to draw the knife over that spot. After a few “rolls” and “draws” of the knife the cable literally opens up for me from the tension and the very shallow cuts.
Then I hold that cable in the same “U” shape and start at the cut and gently draw the knife lengthwise down the cable. Again the tension helps the cable open up so I don’t have to make deep cuts endangering the wires inside. After you’ve made a cut of a couple inches long, you can usually grab the cut cable jacket and pull sideways away from the cable and it will probably rip right off the cable as far as you want to go.
That’s one technique that works for me. There are others as not all cable jackets are as easy to remove as others. Hope this made sense and I hope it helps.
Woodlandtoots
I very carefully cut a groove in the outer insulation along the length of the cable then peel it off. The outer jacket separates and peels open right along the groove. The only thing I have to contend with then is the nylon threads wrapped the wires on the one I have.
Your right Jeffrey, you can cut a groove the length of the cable, and I have done lots of that. However usually you only have to cut the groove a short distance and you can rip the cable jacket off the rest of the way.
Of course some cable jackets are thicker than others and some can’t be ripped off while others can.
The less distance you actually have to cut, the less chance of slipping and cutting your self.
Woodlandtoots
You don’t mention what guage the wire is. Even the older phone 20g wire seems too thin for most of what you plan to use it for. Track feeder/ drops should be a bare min of 20g. but attached to a much heavier bus of at least 14g (12 for longer runs). This wire may be OK for signals, detection and layout lighting.
To minimize any voltage drop throughout the track sections and supply adaquate power to swich machines you may want to rethink using this wire for all of your feeds.
When I was in the tele business, we used to use a stripping tool. It was shipped somewhat like a crochet hook (but bigger & longer in the hook) with a sharp blade in the inside of the crook.
you jab the point into the cable, tilt the tool so that the point is riding against the inside of the sheath and pull.
I’ve used it on 20 pr cables - might not work so well on the 3 pr stuff…
Villy
Some of it has a string included just for that purpose. If you peel back an inch or so you just need to start a cut and pull the string down through it. At some point near the end the string will strip itself rather than finish the cut but it isn’t until there is a foot or so left.
Getting the outer covering off on some types/brands of telephone wire can be hard.
There may be some cases where you can use the cable as is. One run can carry six wires from say the control panel to a terminal strip down the line, where six things can tie in. Just keep a list of what cable carries what on each color strand.
The stuff I use is the cable AT&T used to use for the Merlin Systems. It has a thick sheath and stranded nylon cord wrapped around the wire bundle. Getting the outer sheath off is no trouble. As I said previously, just cut a groove down the sheath and pull. Getting the nylon strands off can be a PITA, as they’re wrapped tightly around around the wires to the tune of 5 turns per inch!
If you mean the outer sheath around the sets of wires, often times there is a string in the bundle with the wires that can be pulled through the outer sheath. Otherwise, use a SMALL wire cutter and start cutting along the sheath. After you have a decent start, a couple of inches, you can usually grab the wires in one hand and the sheath in the other and pull.
–Randy
I keep seeing all the replies on how to strip the wire. This is great, but it hasn’t been addressed since my first reply that the very small guage may not be suitable for this use.
bogp40: Yes it is 20 guage wire and is in use now as track feeder wire up to control panel and power pack. My layout is a 10x12feet around the wall walkin with a doubleback loop with four seperate tracks and power packs all joined with turnouts for crossovers. My power pack reads .3DC Amps and 5DCVolts. I’m sure you have guessed, mine is a DC Layout as I designed the track plans before DCC came on the market. I have DCC Locos and PowerCab for Club Layout, but I’ve been buying for this hobby for 35years and this is my forth and last layout. I know the 20 guage wire works on my DC layout with no problems.
I use substantially the same technique BUT:
Ok, now don’t laugh.
I use a seam ripper (from the sewing department) to open wiring harnesses at work. Should work to open insulation on phone wire, too.
I generally don’t use this light a gauge of wire except in special applications. For example: traffic signals and crossing flashers. That said, when I have the need, I also use phone wire. I believe it is either 28 or 30 gauge. I went to a local electronic supply house and they had a stripper for about $10. It works great every time.
Hope that helps.
John Timm