How To Incorporate Recycling Into Your Daily Life

Primary Methods for Stripping Waste Copper Wire Before Selling

3 August 2021 by Alberto Williams

Copper wire is one of the few materials that can be recycled numerous times without losing its functional properties. The attribute makes copper wire the most valuable and sought after metal by scrappers. However, you must strip copper to maximise its resale value. Stripping refers to the removal of insulation and end plugs from copper wire. Notably, scrappers use three techniques to strip copper wire before selling it to dealers. 

Pliers or Knife

The first method involves a pair of pliers and a sharp knife. The ideal pair of pliers has a wire stripping section that pinches an insulation material. When you hold pliers tight and pull, the insulation easily comes off copper wire. You can use a knife the same way, but you need to wear protective gloves for safety. However, using pliers to strip the copper is slow and could take extra time and effort. Therefore, it can limit the amount of scrap metal you sell to a dealer. You should only use a pair of pliers or knives when scrapping copper wire in small quantities.

Mechanical Stripper

Some scrap copper wire collectors prefer to install a jig-like stripper referred to as a mechanical wire stripper. It is often installed on a work table designed solely for stripping wire insulations. A typical manual wire stripper comprises a blade fixed to a wooden plank. When you want to strip the insulation of scrap copper wires, you insert a cable through the device and pull. The blade slices the plastic insulation, leaving behind a clean bare copper wire once it comes out from the other end of the stripper. The stripping method is ideal if you collect copper wires in relatively large quantities. It is also much faster than using a pair of pliers, although you still need a little bit of elbow grease.

Electric Wire Stripper

You should only invest in an electric-powered wire stripper if you collect scrap metal as a business. The reason is that the amount of money you get from scrap copper wire must take care of the electric energy used to power the stripping device. An electric wire stripper consists of a motor and a blade. When activated, the motor feeds the copper wire to the blade chamber, where it is stripped clean. Most importantly, an electric wire stripper does all the hard work, making it easy to strip large quantities of copper wire fast.

To learn more about this process, contact companies that offer cash for copper.

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