Paid $150 for a fancy coax stripping tool...

I got fed up with nicking the inner conductor on RG400 with my cheap strippers. Dropped $150 on a Daniels DMC Stripmaster last month from a surplus shop near BWI. First few pulls were perfect, no damage at all. But then it jammed on the third cable and I had to take the whole thing apart to clear the shavings. Works great now but the learning curve was steeper than I expected. Anyone else find these precision tools finicky at first?

3 comments

3 Comments

gavinw4510d ago

Ended up having to blow out my DMC with compressed air every five cables at first, those little copper shavings stick to the blades like crazy. Once you get past that breaking in period they're golden though, the clean cuts are worth the hassle.

grant_foster7910d ago

Man these precision tools have such a tight tolerance that any tiny bit of debris throws everything off. I found that blowing out the blades with compressed air before each use helps a ton with jams. Once you get the rhythm down they're way more consistent than the cheap ones though.

julia_miller2410d ago

Nah, I gotta disagree with you there honestly. All that extra cleaning and fussing kind of defeats the purpose of having a tool that's supposed to make things easier. I've had way better luck with the cheaper ones because they're more forgiving (you know, they don't crap out if you look at them wrong). Plus, with the expensive precision stuff you're always paranoid about messing up the calibration just by breathing near it, which takes all the fun out of the work.