Insulation Stripper?

[HRTKD]

I bought the Dewalt DCE151B from Woot. It comes with no cutters. You must buy them individually, starting around $35. I bought a 2/0 cutter but the 2/0 welding cable was very difficult to push into the cutter. I then bought a 3/0 cutter thinking it would fit the 2/0 cable better. While the welding cable does go into the 3/0 cutter easier, the cutter is so large that it hardly cuts the insulation.

Here's my attempt at cutting 2/0 welding cable with the 3/0 cutter, with the cutting blade adjusted in as far as it will got.


I went back to the 2/0 cutter and put some muscle into shoving the cable into the cutter. It still didn't work.

I switched to my Klein Stripper tool and used the 3/0 cutter on it. This is the best I could do. It didn't seem to cut any of the strands but it did twist them. The result isn't clean enough and would require additional work with a utility knife.



The Klein has maybe 1mm of adjustment on the blade, which isn't enough at all. The Dewalt blades can be adjusted about 3mm.


The Dewalt 2/0 cutter. The sharp part of the blade is at about the 3 o'clock position. It's adjusted in as far as it will go.


I don't recall what type of wire the Klein cutter is rated for. The Dewalt cutter is rated for THHN & XHHW. These tools just aren't designed for welding cable. At least that's my experience. I'm back to using a box cutter.

 

[JJJJ]

I used the cutter Will references on his site. I first position the wire next to the lug and mark it with painters tape. I then carefully follow the edge of the tape line with the cutter.

 

[jberger]

I've used this style jacket slitter for years.

Panduit | CST114-157

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I think I have 5 of them set for different cable sizes, once you dial them in it is super simple to strip any jackets up to 2".
My favorite has a rotating 90 degree knife so once you've made the cut around the wire, you can turn the blade at a right angle to slice the jacket off the end without needing a second cutter. I think Paladin makes the 90 degree model.

If it's a very flexible jacket, you can clean it up with a hook blade. The curve of the blade makes it easy to trim by following the curve of the cable without nicking the strands.