Problem is people not being able to turn off the scraping mindset. I've watched countless guys scrap $200-1000 used and or vintage equipment(no work needed) for $30-50 in scrap with hours of labor. All because there might be copper inside....

So I watched your channel, got hooked, bought a wire stripper and started in on my Dad's store of various wire to be stripped. He died before he got it done. Yesterday I was given $415.27 at a local scrap yard. This isn't about money for me, just something that I needed to do for my Dad. But I was amazed at what it is worth. Now I find myself doing just what my Dad did, hawk eyeing dumsters and construction site waste piles. It will become an enjoyable past time, I know. Thanks for all your work and good advice.

I'm a plumber working for a building company. I'm a diligent scrap collector and no one else on the firm can be bothered. I obviously get a fair amount of copper pipe, but I also get a LOT of cable. I've never spent a whole day stripping it, but I do put in an hour or 2 when I can. I don't actually see it as "work" I'm at home listening to radio and chilling in my shed with a stripper 😂 I have to say though I never strip the Flex cable (stranded stuff) it's a pain in the arse... Even though in the UK we get the same price for both, It's just under "bright copper cable". Also it's £6.20 a kilo here right now and Im gonna turn in my stash soon for Xmas presents for the kids 😉

I'm not a recycling person, but I often repair electronics. If something is too old or broken, I take usable stuff out. I also have a box where I collect raw copper stuff like solid copper heat sinks. It's not much but if I would throw it away, I wouldn't get anything for it and so I might get something when I find someone to sell it to.

Small tip: If it is hard to get hold of the insulation after the cut, have a hammer ready, smack the end of the wire and it is quite easy

I think the speed of the drill you use makes a huge difference. I bought a Stripmeister last month after watching your video on them. The first drill I used was a cheap menards tool shop brand one. took a awhile to get through stuff. Switched over to a stupid fast hammer drill and can race through the wires now. You are absolutely right about needing to have your wires sorted to similar sizes to save time. Enjoy your videos. Stay safe.

Love how you try to save a customer money it’s such a great thing. Fitters don’t have to do it cheap we don’t want that, but saving them is the way in the service industry. The IRR of saving a customer money is a win and the environment wins. They save bucks, you feel good inside, you get more work so more money later, and the environment feels better for less landfill for garbage. Your videos are amazing I love watching all of them.

Love the channel Thub. From my experience it isn't worth it for me to strip anything smaller than 14 gauge, I figured it out the same way you did. I usually won't even bother taking the time to strip the outer casing off of 14 gauge romex, my scrap yard doesn't differentiate between 12/14 gauge romex for prices. I also have the motorized version of your stripper, I sprung for it because I'm an electrician and I come across a lot of wire. I think it is a lot easier to crank out higher volumes when you can go hands free on the automation and not have to worry about pulling the trigger. I've also found that if you split the task of running your pile through the machine and then pulling the insulation off it helps to speed up production. I also don't do it all at once, more often than not I'll do one bucket in the garage for a little bit after the kids go to sleep. I just fill up buckets with bare bright until I get tired of it sitting around and then go cash in. 🤑

I work at a motor rewind shop ,and occasionally someone stops by asking if we have any scrap motors. Sure ,go for it buddy. What I'll say is none of them have ever come back for more a second time. It's almost not worth it for us to strip them and use the burnout oven unless we can get one of the kids on a huge pile for a few days. Even then,it's basically clearing space and gets us a few free pizzas for lunch.

whenever you have long lengths of wire or spools, try to sell it as wire first, it’s worth WAY more as wire, instead of scrap copper

not just labor time, wear and tear cost on the drill, and stripper blade does cost something. Love thub economic analysis.

Quality content, you’ve got a knack for KZfaq, keep at it! Subscribed to see you grow 👍🏼

about 3 years ago in a warehouse clear out, I picked up a 4-foot by 4-foot by 3 feet high cardboard bin full of mixed wire to be stripped, with a proper wire stripper that has its own proper AC motor, my father and I managed to strip the box in 3 or 4 days and we barely made enough to pay for the wire stripper which at the time I paid around 250$ let alone our time of stripping wires, The only real way to make money stripping, is in a Topless bar haha

I recently bought a wire stripper after watching your review on them. What stood out to me was what you said the main problem you had and what many others had was that sometimes the wire would move out of place causing it not to cut. So I was looking at different types and found one from the brand Coppermine. What they had in there demo video was that it has wire clamps on the side of the blade so it stays in place. I got the 302 model for $199.99 U.S because it has a separate blade that will strip big guage and romax. I'm quite happy with it. It also has the option to hand crank or drill attachment. Just wanted to say thank you for all your reviews and sharing your experience. I don't think I would know what I know if not for your videos. :)

Fascinating and worthy of a subscription if ever there were! A friend of a friend used to do this. One bought a fancy £2K machine to do this and I always wondered if it was worth it. The other guy just burned it off at night, which is totally illegal and terrible for the climate. The tiny value puts both into perspective and knowing that people will pull live wires for this kind of return really makes you think. Thank you!

Subscribed. Look forward to watching your videos. You’re fun to watch. Keep it up bud!

A quick foot pedal switch for your drill is a surge protector on the floor. It let's you go both hands for feeding and separating the wire as it goes through.

I'm in Ohio, and it's getting really cold here, I believe one day this coming week, it's only going to be a high of 49. I love the colors of fall, but don't like the really cold weather. I can handle about 60-65, with minimal wind, but anything lower than that, I'd rather just hibernate lol. Loving the videos

This is an amazing and enlighting video, thank you. The value of our time is almost always underestimated! Thank you :)

Very interesting- thanks for taking the time to do this

The second hole from the top is made for stripping loomex, you can use it and adjust the blade to skin both the white insulation and one of the wire in one go. To untwist you can just tie the end to something solid and use your drill to untwist

I did 4 hours of stripping of 250mcm copper from a job I did way up north, all cut offs. And it got me $400 like 8 years ago... Really depends on the overall amount, type and gauge

Nice analysis which will definitely help me decide whether to strip or not.

I collected wires over the years, along with brass, and took it to the junkyard, and I got enough to make it worthwhile going down there once every few years. As I recall, they paid different rates for different types of wires -- but I never thought about stripping the wire and selling it as pure copper. In fact, I never saw one of those drill-strippers before, and that makes it seem worth the effort, at least for the larger-gauge wires, as you found out.

For me it's always been about how much the cladding weighs in comparison to the cable itself. Because the local scrapyard assumes that cables are only 30% copper by weight. So it's just a matter of figuring out which cables have less than 30% copper by weight, those are not worth stripping. The ones that have more copper are worth it. Also depending on what kind of insulation is being used, it's worth keeping the different kinds of plastic sorted together. As over here we do have a company that buys sorted plastics in order to make new plastics out of them. And even if that gets you maybe cents per kilo for the plastic, the municipal dump charges 18ct/m^3 to take it away for you. So it's much more economical to sell the plastic as well.

I have always loved scrapping, but I realized early on that stripping most kinds of wire was not really worth the small amount of extra money as compared to selling with the insulation still on. I make exceptions for solid 10 or 12 gauge, especially if it's nice and straight. Kinked up stuff gets tossed in the #1 insulated pile. I also encounter a good deal of 8, 6, and even 4 gauge, all of which obviously gets stripped. One time I got three 20 foot sections of 500 KCMil from a decommissioned back up generator. That was a good day.

After reading a LOT of the comments here, I feel that some folks are missing a good opportunity. I cast the copper myself, it's easy, and you don't need expensive equipment. It's a lot of fun making stuff like ornaments, specialty hammers, weights, etc. Or machining it. Beats having to buy it. Even casting it into tidy, shiny little (or huge) ingots is very satisfying. Greetings from Denmark!

Keep in mind that that's only that hourly rate if you have unlimited free copper rolling in. It takes exponentially more hours to extract the copper than to strip it.

Soaking the wire in boiling water for a few minutes really speeds up the job as the plastic gets really soft, making stripping a lot easier to slice.

Well done Thub, that's an excellent analysis! 👍👍

Stripping copper in developed country: U get nohing, you loose Stripping copper in underdeveloped country: Wealth and prosperity be upon you

Just a FYI the old cloth/fabric insulation has a very good chance of being made with asbestos, so do take the precaution of using a respirator.

I was like wow someone who’s not a tweaker stripping copper, then he said “I took the nicest ten pounds an buried it in the back yard”

Hey, great video. Thanks for doing that. Im an electrician and have a nice little stash going and always wondered if it was worth it to strip it or not. I at least have an idea now if I want to spend the time or not

Nice video and sum up. A whole lot of work you did there.

I'm the kind of smart that can see the gauge, but not the kind that knew that those amazing strippers exist 😮 you can't imagine how long it takes me. I make jewelry out of my copper and don't find things to take apart very often, but dang, I might just start looking around more ❤

I'm thinking about investing in one of the motorized Stripmeisters. They're awesome machines and much better the el-cheapo I'm currently using. There's a lot to be said for understanding the ROI relative to one's time. Time is always in short supply for me, so I only strip heavy gauge wire. But it is so dependent on why folks do this and how much wire they get. Take care and keep up the great work.

Good video mate, points made well as usual 👍

I'm coming back to this video a year later. I just ordered a Vevor 60w 7 hole electric stripper. I had the multi purpose ran by a drill like you had in this video and I got rid of that thing quickly. Most of my stuff is 14 - 12 gauge Romex. The wire always slipped off the multi purpose stripper for me so I junked it. This motorized one from Vevor apparently eliminates that issue so we will see when it arrives. The other reason I bought it for is the massive amounts of extension cords I get. If I strip the outer insulation off the price goes up $1.00 a pound. So I spent $200 US to see if I can make better profit on the 2 materials. I'll come back and edit this post with the results. Keep it up Thub!

Just for comparison: in eastern europe, as a chemist (with a masters degree), my salary (after taxes) is about 4.5$/hour. Stripping copper cables isnt that bad. :)

Im a stripper from Estonia. All my stripping equippment is handmade, box cutters, wood, screws... I work daily but stripping is my hobby and i enjoy it. I like your videos been watching you long time.

I started watching your videos, now I’m hooked. I’ve been binge watching your videos when I get home at night and I enjoy them so much that after learning you make more money on KZfaq when people watch the entire ad, I now watch every ad to the end

I used to strip wire all the time, back when i worked in construction. It was always a nice little $150-$200 pay check, for like half a days work, once a month or so. I stopped doing it though. For 1) the price of all scrap metal had dropped so much. And for 2) the place that i took the scrap to, was known for having under weighing scales.

That’s exactly what I wanted to know, is it worth it to strip it or not? Awesome! Thanks for the videos, cheers! Of course you never factored in the amount of time it took to scavenge all this copper either

Have the same stripper , going to use motor from a treadmill , add a footswitch to drive the stripper , the treadmill & foot switch were part of my free pickups ;)

albanians are analyzing the hell out of this video rn

I use to do this on the side. Saved up enough to buy a few tools and got into woodworking. Now I pay myself upwards of $100 an hour on most projects I do while putting half that back into tools and wood. Scrapping gave me a lot. The profit was horrible, the drive to improve was everything.

Great explanation. The best part.... knowing the difference in taking the time and effort to strip the wire over just taking it in, as is. $64 in an 8 hour day. Worth it to some, not worth it to others.

Took an old treadmill and used the motor, control board and rollers to make a wire stripper. Gets the job done super fast but there’s a lot of cleanup during the process.

Would the dollar per hour average increase if you kept separate bins to avoid having to sort bins of tangled wire when you have accumulated enough to strip and scrap? Just a thought. Really enjoy the videos thanks for all the hard work.

Beautiful bin of copper. 😁

This is a good video, and it reinforces what I suspected. In most cases, it is not worth stripping wire. Just take your insulated wire to the recycling center, so you can spend your time doing more valuable work.

You could put the Stripmeister (tm) sideways in a drill press. I'd put the pulleys on the slowest speed to increase torque.

I have been waiting for this

A hardware store near me had 2” x 10ft copper pipe priced at 18.00. It was miss marked. It should have been 2” x 1.0ft. They had to honor the price. They were mad, until I said “I could have kept my mouth shut and bought all of it, then went to the others in the area and bought all theirs. They were okay after that. Their price tags come from corporate so all the stores got the same wrong tags.

very cool video, lookin amazing

Back in 07. I bought my first new car off the lot. By scraping copper. I filled the entire inside of a Astro van. I took the van and everything to the yard. Just so I didn't have to unload it. I scrapped the van as well.

I bought at an auction a pile of welding leads for very cheap, I sold quite a lot of the good ones and set to stripping the bad ones. There is a lot of brass and copper in those, I was amazed at the prices I got, I basically tripled the money I spent to buy the leads in the first place.

Does the extra twist on the wire after stripping really improve the storage efficiency? I think you could get away with just a loose coil in a trash can and save some time.

That is why I pull the wires through a device I made with a screw. Takes only a little longer than the drill, but with proper form can be an excellent back and/or triceps exercise. Can isolate either back or tricep, or do a more full range of motion exercise that hits both. Scrapping for me is about having a nice hobby that develops skills with tools, helps me understand how things work, improves my fine motor skills, and is environmentally friendly.

Depends on the wire. Am I stripping 22 gauge phone wires, or 500 MCM Power Cable? I'm a retired Electrician, and my experience is, it isn't worth stripping unless it's like 8 gauge or better.

Your stripmeister will cut that romex and one of the inside wires at the same time, thus saving an entire step. I was doing it your way too until I stumbled across one of their videos. And I put a motor I found on my stripmeister (same as yours) and it simplifies things as you get your 2nd hand back not having to work the drill.

Awesome video as usual. I appreciate the breakdown ot really helps 🙂

My friend has scrap in Silverado way SW in the back side it is a washer

If it has an earth or ground conductor use a box cutter to expose end then use pliers to unzip the entire length. Individual conductors can be unzipped passing conductor between two spaced blades clamped in a vice. So for those that don't have a mechanised wire stripper all you need is a box cutter and a few blades. If you don't have a vice, you could clamp your spaced blades in a mole wrench.

I appreciate your videos very much, thank you.

My mom does this without the copper wire and gets $300 in $1 bills

Mr Bernard is legit and his method works like magic I keep on earning every single week with his new strategy

I don't usually mess with or strip anything smaller than #6 sometimes #8 but I usually just let the guys have it. Only because I don't have time to work on stripping it. When I think about what my time is worth. I have ninth grade education but I also have a masters license in electrical. I make $41.60hr or $.69 a min. But when I work overtime it's $62.40hr or $1.04 a min but on Sunday and holidays it's $83.20hr or $1.38 a min. So unless I can make something close to that which you can very easily when you have some 500 or 600kcmil It doesn't usually make sense plus It makes me feel good knowing I've helped my guys out as a little extra appreciation.

I've got a lot of various metal to scrap from my father's estate. Found your channel , looking for wire striping advice. Curious about your comment here about boiling plug ends to pull brass out of them? I've been cutting ends off of wire, just to improve the wire value, and generally discarding the plug ends, except for ones that might be useful. So, what's up with the 'boiling'? Thanks.

Interesting Thanks for sharing!

12AWG wire is around 4 o'clock on the top dial. 14AWG wire is around 10 o'clock. I made the mistake thinking the spinning blade should be lined up with the wheels. Read the instructions and found out the blade needs to be higher since the wheels force the wire up This machine has absolutely ZERO problem stripping small wire. /

Nice! good work!

I had some of the old school insulated cable. I sold it as is bc it was $1/lb and it was too messy to strip. Vs 2.68 for bare bright

I get literally tons (approx.10-12 tons) of 4/0 to 500 mcm per year from my job as an electrician in the mining industry. In my barn I currently have about 5 tons waiting to be prepared to run through my Vervor electric wire stripper. 98% of the wire I get is Teck 90 cable (copper insulated conductors covered by rubber jacket inside aluminum MC type covering and wrapped in another rubber coating) so I generally have to cut the outer layers off with a grinder cutoff wheel. I usually prepare wire for a month for the stripper then strip wire for a month a few hours a day on the weekends. February is a "stripping" month for me. I generally work about 3 hours a day on the weekend days and usually do about 500 lbs bright bare a day in those 3 hours which is about what my 30 gallon barrels hold. I have 35 or so barrels of bright bare full ATM as I only take 4-6 barrels a month to sell at a few different scrap yards so I don't get caught up in a 1099 situation. I also save and sell the aluminum and make about $100 or so a month off that. Bottom line is I average about 60k a year extra money from scrap copper and another $1200-ish from aluminum, plus the bright bare I do not sell that slowly adds up each year. Every year I end up with 5-8 more surplus barrels full (part of my retirement plan lol) A recommendation to you if all you do is the smaller stuff. Look into copper granulators. I bought one several years ago it was about $4,000 new. It made quick easy work of of trash cans full of random wire from data cable to #6 - 4 conductor cable like dryer cords etc. I could do about 40 lbs an hour and store it in 5 gallon buckets, about 200 lbs each. Just toss in everything, no stripping, no prep at all. AND if you can find a company that uses granulated copper you can get about 20% more in price than bare bright. I used to sell mine to a bearing company 2-3 times a year since it was a long drive. I made about 12k-15k a year doing it. I sold my granulator about 8 years ago when I took my current job where I don't actually see much smaller wiring anymore. I also know a guy who uses a Ryobi 3000 watt 240 volt impact shredder to do the smaller stuff. He says it takes 3-4 passes of the wire, but separates the copper from the insulation with water in the catch bin.

It might be fun to rig up two contra-rotating spools for separating long wires and their insulation!

Do you need to be proximal to a primary metropolitan area to find things to scrap like this, or is it relatively possible in smaller areas? (Big metro being like Seattle, LA, San-fran vs secondary areas or more suburb areas) I can PM you my location if that might help you gauge the answer to my question.

I had a few things happen this year for scrapping: We had a few power lines being replaced and the power company dumped the old wires nearby (for a solid month and said we could take them) Had a whole bunch of aluminium cans and scrap donated (be surprised how many people dont do much with aluminium) And we got access to a shooting range to collect a bunch of brass as they were leaving it to rot We had a tally total of: 300lbs copper (varying sources) 200lbs aluminium (cans and scrap components) 400lbs brass (lots of shell casings unattended) We havent sold it yet as were planning to do something with a bit of it but likely if we did sell it wed be sitting at almost $2k or over with current prices

Interesting video. The more you strip the more you learn what is worth it, and what is not. Eventually it becomes second nature and very little thought processes is required.👍♻️✌

Thank you a lot I have let go a lot but I can grab them for now what is the name of the matching you are using

Good man !. About 1 1/2 years ago, i took 160 pounds, of pure red #1 copper to recycle place. Price was 4.00 $ canadian a pound. The wire was in large 2 and 3 inch cables; extra large heavy duty stuff. Invested an afternoon, stripping this with angle grinder, with very thin stone. Extremely hard work, as the pieces were from 4 - 6 feet long, heavily insulated for underground cabling. Earned 640 $ canadian. IT IS WORTH it.......

I just built myself a large metal contraption that on the inside resembles the winding maze like shape of a portted sub woofer box with a series of filters starting with metal filters toward the front, than carbon, then fiber and composite filters, than paper followed by one last carbon filter and a large metal industrial fan pulling the air outward and i just burn it all. Takes half hour and you cant even smell a thing at the end and virtually zero smoke blows out and the smoke that does come out is white and doesnt stink. Granted u have to swap pretty.much all the filters out eventually or ar minimum clean them well but i do mine 1 time a year and its good. Ive been thinking about adding a section with electrically charged metal plates the smoke travels through. Thoughts?

If you ultimately know you’re going to sort it by type… do it as you save/collect it. It saves that whole block of time later.

Good video !! Smart ideas

Where I'm at, ANY gauge bright bare is called #1. Any un-tinned insulated, 14Ga. and up, is @1 insulated, whether it's stranded or not. Any insulated smaller than 14Ga and any tinned is #2.

Thanks for the video =)

My buddy built a stripper out of 2 dollar store can openers its by hand but faster then then it slices the casing in half so as he's pulling it thru the casing spilts off to each side leaving a bare wire and he pulls it thru with a crank style mech bad ass for what it is

You need fewer adjustments, especially for house wire, which you find a lot of. Suggestion: get a machine shop to make you a custom vice/hand tool with a series of holes (and blade in each hole) very close to size of house wire, so you can keep perfect adjustments longer or forever. It would be similar to TNT Tooling WSA hand wire stripper.

I have a motorized stripper and it definitely saves time, plus it will strip almost any size. I’ve stripped stuff the size of a sewing needle just for fun.

I’m always picking up scrap on the side of the roads to and from my work and scanning the nearest neighborhoods for metals for several reasons 1. It holds value better then currency and your metal can be stored like a squirrel does nuts for that rainy day or when the price of that particular metal skyrockets🚀 2.those items you pick up often are useful around the house or can be made into other things if your handy 3. Is more of a tip ,you may have the option to sell your road side scrap to other people or places then the cheaper local scrap yards , there are people willing to pay more for your copper wire then scrap yards , some times twice as much direct to DYI smelters crafters ect. Scrap yards are middle men and they often double or triple there money , the only metal I take to them are the junk steel .

I see scrapping as more of a hobby or even a side hustle. Only scrap yards can make a living doing it, but if you're scrapping instead of watching TV all day, it's worth your time (like you said)

did you add the time it took to drive it to the scrapyard and the petrol it costed to cover that distance twice? Did you add the time it took to collect and store it till you had this nice pile?

I think low powered laser cutter would work wonders here, a properly designed machine would cut through the plastic insulation but not damage the copper at all, with a spring loaded gripping wheel kinda like a 3d printer, it could take different sized wires with no alterations except when it gets really thick and maybe increasing the laser strength would be good.

You should color code your adjustment screw for the different gauge wires, less adjustment time.

I converted my stripper to a motor driven by using the chain and sprocket and the 24-volt motor out of a stand on scooter reducing the battery input to 12volts which lowers the RPM. And should I say my mancave is solar powered

Being a part-timer in the realm of scrapping, I haven't invested in a stripping machine yet. Still using my own easily adjustable contraption that has a top and bottom blade and pulls wire through somewhat quickly with a hand crank winch attached to vice grips holding a small rolled section of stripped copper tip (then utility knife or bend and yank to pop the last bit of wire from the casing) However, the tip I would throw in here that saves me a lot of time is to set things up so that the wiring is pulled through an appropriately sized funnel. I have a couple that I use for oil changes on different vehicles. Straightens out all the kinks and bends, saving me the annoyance of time-consuming hassles. I will always take the time to transform anything to bare bright, but.. making the effort to upgrade #2 to #1? No thanks. Not even on a rainy day. I personally don't have nearly as much time for the thrill of the hunt as I would like.. certainly not going to waste time like that knowing my hours of labor would only be worth a few bucks. Can make so much more in the same amount of time scavenging random sidewalk iron shred or discarded appliances. Bonus -- more copper wire.. more aluminum.. more brass! But, I certainly do understand how many people enjoy tinkering in their sheds and garages.. That $60 difference is a free tank of gas! Hard to say no to that!

@thubprint not sure if you know this but the stripmeister has that function to strip the romex right aways as well as a conductor. Don’t need to waste your time stripping the outer insulation

Great video Thub nice pile of wire! that strip meister is worth it's wieght in gold!

love you videos ! Do you recommend a wire stripper? I just purchased a pair of wire strippers , im not sure of its actually name. not pliers . but like pliers

Honestly you made far more than I had expected 😅