In today’s booming market for bare bright copper, it’s essential for electricians, recycling professionals, and scrap wire enthusiasts to have the best wire stripping tools at their disposal. When every ounce of copper counts, you can’t afford inefficiencies. Enter StripMeister, the brand that has redefined what it means to have the best wire stripper.
Here’s why StripMeister is your indispensable partner when you’re looking to cash in on top dollar for scrap copper:
Rapid Return on Investment
Quick Payback: Many of our customers have claimed to recoup their investment in mere hours. It’s not just about having the best automatic wire stripper; it’s about the speed and efficiency with which you can strip and sell without slow downs from jams and slips.
The Seal of Safety
Safety Certifications: StripMeister is the only brand in the market that can proudly boast of having essential safety certifications. This isn’t just a testament to the product’s quality, but also its commitment to the safety of its users. With StripMeister, you’re not just investing in a high performance tool, but reducing chances of cutting your hands or even serious injury that can come from feeding larger cables without speed control.
Efficiency That’s Unparalleled
Many Times More Efficient & Accurate: StripMeister time and time again has proved to be many times more efficient and accurate than its competitors. This translates to faster work, fewer errors, and maximized profits.
Stellar Support
Support and Setup Assistance where you need it: When you invest in the best cable stripping tool, you’re also getting a commitment. Our team is on standby, ready to guide, assist, and ensure you’re maximizing the performance of your StripMeister. Through our setup videos, online chat, toll free number and through social media, we stand behind our products.
Durability Like No Other
Ultra Long-Lasting Components: Longevity is key, and with StripMeister’s ultra-durable components, you have a tool that’s built to outlast and outperform.
Innovations That Matter
Unique, Essential Features: Beyond it’s competition, StripMeister boasts unique features that are indispensable for anyone stripping wire like Ultra Grip feeders with huge gripping power, Variable speed control to adjust stripping speeds based on wire gauge, and precision engineering to ensure a lifetime of seamless operation even after changing the blade and feeder. It’s not just a tool; it’s a game-changer.
Building A Legacy of Trust
Approaching 100,000 Satisfied Customers: Numbers speak louder than words. With nearly 100,000 satisfied customers, StripMeister’s reputation as the best wire stripper is solidified. This isn’t just a statistic; it’s a testament to unparalleled quality and performance.
Why have we invested heavily in adding proprietary speed control to our powered wire stripping machines?
Simple, with speed control you can control the pace of stripping based on the condition and size of the wire.
All competitors machines will try unsuccessfully to strip wires of all sizes at “the same top speed”. This is very dangerous and extremely inefficient.
Once you use a StripMeister with speed control, you will never want to strip another wire again without it. Guaranteed!
Speed control helps in the following ways:
Increases production by 300% because you eliminate constant turning on and off the machine
Reduces slipping tremendously which will cut down on overall stripping time
100% safer than operating without speed control. Why would you want a 3 inch diameter wire going through at the same speed as 1/8th inch?
By using speed control on a lower setting, you can feed kinked and twisted stubborn cable through at the perfect cutting speed.
Remember, we are the only manufacturer to offer this essential function.
People new to the scrap metals business quickly learn that copper wire is king! Although there are more valuable metals out there, nothing matches copper wire’s availability, value and ease of handling. Stripped copper wire is worth three times as much as wire with the insulation, causing many to wonder: what is the best wire stripper? Should they use manual methods, or should they invest in a scrap wire stripping machine? In this article, we’ll explore some common ways to strip copper wire and explain what sort of results each method produces. Here are the five most common ways to strip wire, in order of worst to best.
Back in Great-Grandpa’s day, before we understood how important air quality was and how our environment could be adversely affected by burning toxic materials, burning scrap wire to remove the insulation was common. Now, the EPA gives out $10,000 rewards to those who turn in illegal scrap wire burn operations. If you’re caught and convicted, you could receive a $25,000 fine, and a five-year jail sentence. Burning scrap wire is not worth it!
Remove the insulation with a sharp knife
Technology Level: Stone Age Scrapper Likely Results: personal injury, slave wage earnings Scrap copper value: Low to Moderate Scrap copper quantity: Low
Just about every beginning wire scraper starts out with their trusty knife! It is difficult to completely avoid accidents when stripping large amounts of wire with a knife, so most beginners earn a few battle scars. Sadly, they also usually wind up selling a lot of unstripped wire for a low price when they realize how time consuming their manual stripping method is. Instead of using their time to make contacts, find new sources of material, and grow their businesses, knife-using wire strippers remain stuck in the Stone Age of copper wire scrapping. There are much better ways to do it!
Strip the insulation with a homemade gadget
Technology Level: Middle Ages Scrapper Likely Results: frequent breakdowns, high levels of effort Scrap copper value: Low to Moderate Scrap copper quantity: Moderate
Scrappers, by nature, are innovative, entrepreneurial people. Most quickly realize that burning wire and using the sharp knife method will hold their businesses back, and they start tinkering about, looking for ways to improve their productivity. For a scrapper with excellent fabrication skills, a well-equipped workshop, access to high quality materials and the time to bring all of these things together, the homemade wire stripping machine sometimes works out well. For most scrappers, however, the tinkering results in devices that don’t work well and frequently break down. In the long run, this approach doesn’t get them any further ahead than just using a knife would have.
Cleaning wire with a manual wire stripping machine
Scrappers who decide to buy a wire stripping machine are astute business people who are highly motivated to make their business a success! Unfortunately, there are a lot of vendors selling inferior manual wire stripping machine designs and demanding premium prices for so-so quality. It is typical to spend a lot of time with these machines fiddling with their many adjustments, clearing jams, replacing expensive, hard to find cutting tools, and exerting a lot of physical effort using them. That’s not to mention having to wait weeks for the machine to arrive from overseas in the first place! There is a better way!
Strip that wire and build your scrap metal business with a StripMeister Original Automatic Wire Stripping Machine!
Technology Level: Modern Scrap Metals Entrepreneur Likely Results: Excellent Profits Scrap copper value: High Scrap copper quantity: High
The StripMeister Original Automatic Wire Stripping Machine is a quality piece of equipment that is a pleasure to use! The buzz about this machine on social media from copper wire strippers is that it really does the job better than cheaply built, overpriced manual stripping machines made overseas.
Yes, you’ll lay out a few more of your hard-earned dollars on this smart investment in your business, but you’ll see a return on that investment in a few hours or days of use. Many of those manual wire stripping machines never pay for themselves.
Made right here in North America out of aircraft-grade aluminum and stainless steel, it’s built using 5-axis precision CNC milling technology and will last many years. Backed by a one-year guarantee against manufacturing defects, it arrives quickly from one of our several North American distribution centers so you can start earning!
The StripMeister Original Wire Stripping Machine is the best wire stripping machine on the market. If you want to grow your scrap metal business, a drill powered wire stripping machine is the way to go! Order yours today!
Have you heard the buzz on social media about how more and more scrappers just like you are investing in StripMeister automatic wire stripping machines? Are you wondering how all those sharp business people are turning this reasonably priced tool into a very smart investment in their business they couldn’t live without?
Smart scrappers prowl auction websites looking for deals on bulk quantities of scrap wire! Your StripMeister Original Automatic Wire Stripping Machine makes it easy to turn big batches of scrap wire into #2 and #1 scrap copper, doubling or even tripling your money!
9. Scrap your automotive wire
Are you out there with your trailer buying junk cars and then selling them whole at the local scrap yard? Don’t throw your profits away! Grab those wiring harnesses and feed them to your StripMeister Original wire stripping machine. Suddenly the material which would have sold for automotive shred prices is now selling for #2 or #1 copper prices!
8. Tear-Down Commercial Machines
Business owners and restaurant franchise managers often give their old junk equipment
away for free, just for the convenience of having you haul it away! Commercial machines used in all kinds of industries are filled with dozens of pounds of wire! Tear those machines down and turn the pounds of insulated copper wire inside into big profits!
7. Work with local Electrician Apprentices
Apprentice electricians don’t get paid well, but they get to keep scrap wire from tear-out & replace jobs to help compensate. They spend hours of their free time at home manually stripping wire. But as an experienced scrap metals entrepreneur, you know better! Offer them a fair price for their insulated wire scrap, bring it home to your StripMeister, and double or triple your investment!
6. CRT Television Degaussing Cable is a snap!
TV scrappers know copper is king, and the degaussing cable has a thick sheaf of #1 bare bright hidden inside. But the wrapped insulation can turn into a sticky mess! The StripMeister Original is made for this! Cut off the thick part where the pigtail connects, and run the rest of it through the machine. You’ll be amazed at how much faster the insulation comes off!
5. Make Washer and Dryer Wiring Harnesses Pay
How many scrap washers or dryers have you hauled into your local scrap yard whole? You left the wiring harness inside because it wasn’t worth your time to remove and strip, didn’t you? But your StripMeister Original makes the situation completely different! Now you can profitably pull the wiring harness out and strip the insulated copper wire into #2 or #1 copper!
4. Harvest Computer Power Supply wire
So, you’re tearing down scrap computers, grabbing the valuable main boards, memory, and CPU chips. If you don’t have a StripMeister Original, you might as well leave the power supplies in the machines; it’s not worth your time to take them out. If you have North America’s number one selling wire stripping machine, it’s a different story! A few judiciously-applied chops with a sharp hatchet cleans the connectors off the straight, copper-filled wire. Zip it through your StripMeister, and turn what you used to sell for steel shred into #2 copper!
3. Short Bits and Pieces: No Problem!
Scrappers in the real world know scrap wire doesn’t come neatly coiled in 100 foot lengths. Instead, it comes in lengths of a foot here and a few inches there which are hard to strip by hand. With a StripMeister Original Automatic Wire Stripping Machine, now you can toss all of your “smalls” in a box and save them until you have a quantity worth working with. Sort it by thickness and zip through it! You’ll love how those short lengths of wire turn into profits, quickly and easily!
2.Process wire you never could make money on before
Not every wire scrappers take in can be stripped quickly or easily enough to make it profitable. But there is a surprisingly large class of wire you couldn’t profitably strip by hand that a StripMeister Original can power right through! Quality vacuum cleaners have long lengths of 16 gauge power cord, for example. Stripping it by hand will cost more money than you earn! But your StripMeister Original Automatic Wire Stripping machine makes these cords profitable! Next time you see a vacuum on the curb, don’t just snip the wire and toss it into the ICW box, strip it and double or triple your money!
1. Make Romex Profitable!
The most common wire in North America is Romex household electrical wire. Found in virtually every structure, a LOT of it is torn out every single day during remodeling projects. When you strip it by hand, you only earn a couple of dollars an hour!
Enter the StripMeister Original Automatic Wire Stripping Machine. With its built-in Romex adapter and high feed rates, there’s no better tool for the job! This machine makes stripping Romex a pleasurable, profitable venture!
Quality Equipment for a reasonable price
For $259, the StripMeister Original Automatic Wire Stripping machine is a quality unit made in North America from aircraft grade aluminum and stainless steel that has a one year guarantee against manufacturing defects. It makes stripping wire in sizes from #16 wire to 250 MCM (diameters from 0.100″ (3mm) up to 0.79″ (20.1mm))nearly effortless.
What business do you advertise on the sign out front? How productive are you in performing that service or making that product?
Regardless of what it says on the sign, if you handle significant quantities of scrap insulated copper wire (ICW) in various sizes in the course of doing business, chances are you’re leaving money on the table.
The revenue your operation realizes from selling scrap ICW is important to your bottom line. Your profitability depends on earning as much as you can from the material you handle. Although you know you could sell your scrap ICW as #1 bare bright copper material for two to three times as much by stripping the insulation off, the amount of time required to strip it manually occupies either you or one of your employees in a low-productivity task that is not the main focus of your business. After all, you and your employees are far more productive and profitable when you stick to the type of work that’s advertised on the sign out front. And chances are, that sign doesn’t say anything about stripping wire!
Scrap Metal Prices Have Tanked
At the same time, the scrap metal market you came to depend on over the past few years to help your bottom line isn’t what it used to be.
You aren’t alone if you’ve noticed that prices have taken a dive. People in the industry are now talking like the lucrative scrap metal prices from just a few years ago were nothing more than a bubble that has since popped.
But your expenses sure haven’t taken a dive. You need that scrap metal’s revenue more than ever before. And with an uncertain economy, declining revenues in the scrap metal part of your business, labor costs continually rising, and ICW just as hard and time consuming to strip as ever, you know you need to make a big improvement in efficiency.
The Right Tool for The Job
What if there was a way to get the insulation off the wire much more quickly and easily? What if there was a precision engineered, heavy duty tool that could handle stripping the serious volume of scrap ICW your business produces without breaking a sweat, or your bottom line? Wouldn’t you like to spend less time recovering value from your scrap ICW and more time concentrating on your main line of business? The StripMeisterTM E1000 automatic wire stripping machine can do all of this and more!
The folks behind the StripMeisterTM E1000 automatic wire stripping machine produce a well-engineered tool that is affordably priced at $1149. With an efficient, 1/2HP DC electric motor, featuring a Pulse Width Modulated speed control and a gear reduction drive, you get high torque and precisely adjustable cutting speeds. Cutting tool changes, which only come once every 8,000 pounds of wire, are a snap, and the machine realigns itself upon assembly, with no adjustments required. What’s more, the cutting tool is a precision CNC machined rotary knife made from hardened, heat treated tool steel, and is reasonably priced at $59.99, making the cost of consumables very affordable.
If you’ve been burned by poorly made equipment before, rest assured, they build the StripMeisterTM E1000 in an ISO-9000 certified factory right here in North America, and stand behind it with a full, yearlong warranty against manufacturer defects, so you know they’re confident in the quality of their equipment. This machine is a professional grade tool, built to last in a commercial or industrial environment for many years.
But How Quickly Does It Pay for Itself?
Let’s look at three of the common types of scrap ICW a business like yours typically handles, and see what kind of prices it brings when sold with the insulation still on and with insulation removed at a typical scrap yard in the United States. We’ll show how long it takes to remove the insulation manually, and compare this with how much more quickly it goes with the aid of a StripMeisterTM E1000 automatic stripping machine.
For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that the worker stripping the wire manually is the perfect, dream employee who has a perpetually sharp knife, never stops for coffee or smoke breaks, and is strong enough to strip hundreds of pounds of wire at a steady rate of 300 feet per hour unassisted. We’ll put his approximate labor cost to you, if you pay him $10 an hour, conservatively at $14.35/hour, benefits included. We’ll also show how long the same employee takes to strip the same wire using a StripMeisterTM E1000.
THHN/THHW 1/0 Copper Wire
Original material
100 feet of THHN/THHW 1/0 copper wire
Weight of wire with insulation still on the copper
37.2 pounds
Scrap Yard classification
80% wire, $.90/lb
ICW Selling Price
$33.48
Copper Weight, Insulation Removed
32.61 pounds
Manual time to strip
20 minutes, at a labor cost of $4.78
E1000 time to strip
1.25 minutes, at a labor cost of $0.30
Bare Bright Selling Price @ $2/lb
$65.22
Employee productivity/hour, manual stripping
(300 feet stripped price – ICW price – labor)
$80.87
Employee productivity/hour, E1000 stripping
(4800 feet stripped price – ICW price – labor)
$1,509.17 – 18+times more productive!
E1000 ROI
1,908 feet of this material, stripped in 23.86 minutes
If your business handles scrap 1/0 Copper Wire in significant quantities, your E1000 could pay for itself roughly four times over before you would need to replace the blade for the first time! The E1000 is capable of processing this material at 80 feet per minute, which is roughly 16 times faster than our “perfect” employee can do it by hand and it will do so at a much lower overall cost.
That “E1000 ROI” figure listed above? That’s showing you that your StripMeisterTM E1000 could pay for itself in a little undertwenty-four minutes (if you had enough of this material to keep it going for that long!)
But the real story here is how much more productive the worker operating the machine is than he is manually stripping wire. He adds $80.87 in value to the unstripped ICW in an hour, stripping 300 feet of it by hand. The same worker, operating the StripMeisterTM E1000, would add $1,509.17 in value to the 4800 feet of ICW he could strip bare in an hour. That’s an increase in his productivity of roughly 18 times!
250MCM Insulated Copper Wire
Original material
100 feet of 250MCM insulated copper wire
Weight of wire with insulation still on the copper
85.1 pounds
Scrap Yard classification
Insulated Wire: $1.02/lb
ICW Selling Price
$86.80
Copper Weight, Insulation Removed
77.19 pounds
Manual time to strip
20 minutes, at a labor cost of $4.78
E1000 time to strip
1.17 minutes, at a labor cost of $0.28
Bare Bright Selling Price @ $2/lb
$154.38
Employee productivity/hour, manual stripping
(300 feet stripped price – ICW price – labor)
$188.38
Employee productivity/hour, E1000 stripping
(5100 feet stripped price – ICW price – labor)
$3,432.13 – 18+times more productive!
E1000 ROI
1,085 feet of this material, stripped in 12.76 minutes
The StripMeisterTM E1000 really begins to shine when you’re feeding it 250MCM Insulated copper wire! Manufacturer rated to process this material at 85 feet per minute, it powers through our 100-foot sample of 250MCM in a little over one minute, ten seconds of operation, costing us a mere 28 cents worth of our worker’s time. How quickly could this machine pay for itself? Well, if you’ve got a significant quantity of scrap 250MCM, it will strip enough of it in thirteen minutes to cover its purchase price, labor costs included, even after deducting the value of the source material sold as ICW.
As for our worker’s productivity? Once again, he’s more than 18 times as productive operating the machine than he would be stripping that wire by hand.
1000MCM Insulated Copper Wire
Original material
100 feet of 1000MCM insulated copper wire
Weight of wire with insulation still on the copper
390 feet of this material, stripped in 4.33 minutes
Would you have guessed that a StripMeisterTM E1000 could theoretically pay for itself in 2.24 minutes? If you’ve got a few hundred feet of scrap pieces of 1000 MCM in the back room, it can! After it’s done paying for itself, it will be ready to turn a profit for you for hundreds of more feet of wire before even needing a new cutting tool! Most importantly, however, the StripMeisterTM E1000 remains eighteen times more productive than a worker manually stripping wire in terms of dollars and cents.
Your $1149 investment is paying off huge dividends in profits and productivity!
Quick Change Artist
Of course, most businesses like yours don’t have a few thousand feet of the same type of scrap wire laying around waiting to be stripped. You more likely have a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and a pile or six of assorted other things, with a whole lot of it in short pieces! You might rip out a couple hundred feet of Romex one day, and salvage some heavy gauge scrap wire when you wire an industrial machine the next. If you’re a scrap yard, you’re getting all different kinds of wire every single day. Handling all of this efficiently by hand can be a nightmare, and the competition’s machines just aren’t up to the job.
Fortunately, the StripMeisterTM E1000 automatic wire stripping machine makes taming this jumbled assortment of wire types simple. It features a two-piece front wire guide that makes quick work of adjusting the machine to different sizes. It can handle everything from 18 gauge wire up to 1000 MCM, and it has the ability to precisely change the cutting speed to the rate that best suits the material. With a little bit of sorting, you can quickly set the machine up to process wire in batches, get through your scrap wire piles and turn them into profits quickly!
Most of our customers report back to us that their StripMeisterTM E1000 has paid for itself in a matter of a few hours of operation with the typical jumble of different wire sizes via its huge improvement in their productivity. After that, they tell us, the machine then goes on to earn profits for years after the initial investment has been recovered…profits that up until now the scrap copper wire part of your business just has not been able to generate.
Ready to Work, Everyday
It bears mentioning that the StripMeisterTM E1000 automatic wire stripping machine is not a cheap piece of junk made overseas. Designed and precision manufactured at an ISO-9001 certified factory right here in North America, the StripMeisterTM E1000 will handle your tough wire stripping jobs for years after it has paid for itself. It will do it in all kinds of weather, too: this machine is made of corrosion resistant aluminum and stainless steel, so if the wire stripping job needs to happen out in the back parking lot, a little rain or snow won’t hurt it. It even includes the StripMeisterTM-exclusive built-in Romex wire feed adapter, making the set-up for America’s most popular wire simple and easy.
Really, in these days of declining scrap metal prices and increasing costs, you can’t afford to do without one of these machines and the eighteen-fold increase in productivity it brings.
Additional Features
Constructed of aircraft grade aluminum and stainless steel hardware, it will never rust
Powerful, 1/2HP PWM variable speed controlled DC motor (runs on 60Hz 120V AC)
Strips all sizes from #18 wire to 1000 MCM, Diameters from 0.11″ (2.7mm) up to 1.4″ (35.5mm) including ROMEX and braided (stranded) wire
Blades last for about 8,000 pounds of wire apiece
One-year warranty against manufacturer defects, and a 30-day, money back return policy
Prompt shipping, and ready availability of replacement parts
Your business is serious about making money from scrap insulated copper wire (ICW). As a large electrical contractor, building demolition expert, or professional scrap metals reseller, handling ICW efficiently and extracting the largest value from the material is often part of the lifeblood of your business.
But up until now, you’ve been leaving money on the table. Either you’re still stripping your ICW manually – a costly and inefficient process – or the wire stripping equipment you’re using isn’t well suited to the large volume of ICW that your business handles. Maybe you’ve outgrown tools that are better suited for an individual scrapper, or maybe you’ve lost time and money trying to repair a substandard wire stripping machine that just isn’t well made.
What Happened to Scrap Metal Prices?
In the meantime, you’re feeling the pressure that the shrinking scrap metals market has brought to bear on your bottom line. Scrap metal simply isn’t worth what it was even two years ago, and you’re moving more volume than ever before just to keep up. Maybe you’re in the position of having had to let some material go as ICW that you would have stripped back when prices were better and you could still afford the labor to do it. Maybe you’re even facing some tough decisions about cutting back on payroll in order to keep the business afloat at current prices, all the while sweating which way the market seems to be going. You’re not alone; even some of the biggest scrap metal handlers have been drinking Alka Seltzer® instead of their morning coffee as they watch the futures prices head over the cliff.
Now that old, tired, hobbyist level wire stripper you keep out in back is getting in the way of your productivity. Your guys just can’t produce stripped wire using it or the manual methods any faster than they already are. You need a major increase in productivity, but you’ve got a limited budget to make improvements. How will you get this situation back under control, and start earning profits from your ICW again?
Professional Grade Equipment
You need a wire stripping machine that can handle large volumes of wire in many different sizes. One that far outpaces the clunky old machine you might already have in terms of productivity and reliability, and one that significantly improves the productivity of your employees many times over what they’re capable of by stripping wire with a sharp knife. You know you need a machine that’s precision engineered and made out of sturdy, corrosion-resistant materials, capable of working just as well outside as inside. You’d certainly feel better about buying a machine that was made right here in North America to extremely high standards instead of cut-rate junk from overseas made as cheaply as possible and likely to break by the end of the first month. You need professional grade equipment, but it has to be affordably priced and it has to pay for itself quickly!
The StripMeister E2000x
The StripMeister E2000x Industrial Wire Stripping Machine is professional grade equipment, built for businesses like yours that handle large amounts of scrap insulated copper wire. Priced at a reasonable $1649, it’s made to exacting ISO-9001 standards in a world-class, North American factory. It handles both stranded and solid copper (or aluminum) wire from 16 gauge (1/8”) all the way up to 2000MCM (3 1/8”)!
Based on a powerful, 1 HP DC electric motor, it features a sophisticated Pulse Width Modulated speed control and a gear reduction drive that delivers quiet, smooth and efficient operation and also features a large Emergency Stop button for enhanced safety. Improved over our previous StripMeister E2000 machine, the E2000x has our new spiral groove technology feeder drive and a new, quickly reconfigurable double slider front guide which includes a Romex wire adapter to speed up stripping America’s most popular wire by 33%.
This machine is our very best design, and we stand behind it with a full one-year warranty against defects in materials and workmanship. Cutting tool changes, which only come once every 8,000 pounds of wire, are a snap, and the machine realigns itself precisely after you change the blade, with no adjustments required. What’s more, the cutting tool is a precision CNC machined rotary knife made from hardened, heat treated tool steel, and is reasonably priced at $99.99, making the cost of consumables very affordable.
But How Quickly Does It Pay for Itself?
Let’s look at three of the common types of scrap ICW a business like yours typically handles, and see what kind of prices it brings when sold with the insulation still on and with insulation removed at a typical scrap yard in the United States. We’ll show how long it takes to remove the insulation manually, and compare this with how much more quickly it goes with the aid of a StripMeisterTM E2000x automatic stripping machine.
For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that the worker stripping the wire manually one of your best people. You know the one, she wields a perpetually sharp knife, doesn’t waste her time standing around the water cooler, and is strong enough to strip hundreds of pounds of heavy, insulated wire at a steady rate of 300 feet per hour unassisted. We’ll put her approximate labor cost to you, if you pay her $10 an hour, conservatively at $14.35/hour, benefits included. We’ll also show how long the same employee takes to strip the same wire using a StripMeisterTM E2000X.
Case Study #1: THHN/THHW 2/0 Copper Wire
Original scrap material
100 feet of THHN/THHW 2/0 copper wire
Weight of wire with insulation still on the copper
46.2 pounds
Scrap Yard classification
80% wire, $.90/lb
ICW Selling Price, 100 feet
$41.58
Copper Weight, 100 feet, Insulation Removed
41 pounds
Bare Bright Selling Price 100 feet @ $2/lb
$82.00
Manual time to strip 100 feet
20 minutes, at a labor cost of $4.78
E2000X time to strip 100 feet
1.33 minutes, at a labor cost of $0.32
Employee productivity/hour, manual stripping
(300 feet stripped price – ICW price – labor)
$106.91/hr
Employee productivity/hour, E2000X stripping
(4500 feet stripped price – ICW price – labor)
$1,804.55/hr – 16.88times more productive!
E2000X ROI
pays for itself in 58 minutes stripping 2/0
If your business handles scrap 2/0 Copper Wire in significant quantities, your E2000X could pay for itself almost twice before you would need to replace the blade for the first time! The E2000X is capable of processing this material at 75 feet per minute, which is almost 17 times faster than our “perfect” employee can do it by hand, and it will do so at a much lower overall cost.
But the real story here is how much more productive the worker is while operating the machine than they are while manually stripping wire. They add $106.91 in value to the unstripped ICW in an hour, stripping 300 feet of it by hand. The same worker, operating the StripMeisterTM E2000X, would add $1,804.55 in value to the 4500 feet of 2/0 ICW they could strip bare in an hour.
Case Study #2: 500MCM Insulated Copper Wire
Original scrap material
100 feet of 500MCM insulated copper wire
Weight of 100 feet of wire with insulation still on the copper
165 pounds
Scrap Yard classification
Insulated Wire: $1.22/lb
ICW Selling Price, 100 feet
$201.30
Copper Weight, 100 feet, Insulation Removed
154.38 pounds
Bare Bright Selling Price 100 feet @ $2/lb
$308.76
Manual time to strip 100 feet
20 minutes, at a labor cost of $4.78
E2000X time to strip 100 feet
1.25 minutes, at a labor cost of $0.31
Employee productivity/hour, manual stripping
(300 feet stripped price – ICW price – labor)
$308.03/hr
Employee productivity/hour, E2000X stripping
(4800 feet stripped price – ICW price – labor)
$5,143.73/hr – 16+times more productive!
E2000X ROI
stripping 500MCM you make your money back in just under 15 minutes.
Once again, the efficiency of the worker using the StripMeisterTM E2000X is dramatically higher than the same worker manually stripping wire at 300 feet per hour. 500MCM wire, being inherently more valuable than 2/0 wire, picks up an additional advantage in that it is actually processed 5 feet per minute faster by the E2000x than 2/0 wire. Manufacturer rated to process this material at 80 feet per minute, it powers through our 100-foot sample of 50MCM in one minute, fifteen seconds of operation, costing us only 31 cents worth of our worker’s time. How quickly could this machine pay for itself? Well, if you’ve got a significant quantity of scrap 500MCM, it will strip enough of it in just under 15 minutes to cover its purchase price, labor costs included, even after deducting what the value of the insulated source material would be if it was turned in unstripped.
As for our worker’s productivity? Once again, they are almost 17 times more productive operating the machine than they would be stripping that wire by hand. Their also far less likely to suffer injuries because not only is the StripMeister E2000x much faster than using a sharp knife, it’s inherently safer, too! And remember, if things start to get out of hand, the E2000x features an Emergency Stop switch that shuts it down immediately with a single blow. Does your current wire stripping device strip this much wire this quickly, economically, and safely? Probably not!
Case Study #3: 2000MCM Insulated Copper Wire
Original material
100 feet of 2000MCM insulated copper wire
Weight of wire with insulation still on the copper
stripping 2000MCM you make your money back in just under 12 minutes.
Given that 2000MCM (2000KCMIL) wire is 70% wire, the StripMeisterTM E2000X could theoretically pay for itself in about 12 minutes if you had enough 2000MCM wire to run through! After it’s done paying for itself, it will be ready to turn a profit for you for many years to come on wire and cable of all different sizes and yields.
In the meantime, your worker will have multiplied her average hourly productivity by over eighteen times using this very reasonably priced, high quality investment in industrial wire stripping technology.
Remember, the return on investment here assumes that one worker can handle hundreds upon hundreds of feet of extremely heavy wire by herself; that she can slice through a heavy jacket of insulation as quickly as a thin one, can move the scrap wire around the shop herself using a forklift, and never needs new utility knife blades or work breaks. If you factor in the reality that the job here could easily occupy two or three people, that injuries using sharp tools to manually strip wire are common, and that 300 foot per hour productivity manually stripping wire likely represents the peak, rather than the average, productivity for a single worker, you will find that your StripMeister E2000x machine offers efficiencies and profitability enhancements that go well beyond what we’re able to describe for you here.
Quick Change Artist
Of course, most businesses like yours don’t have thousands of feet of the same type of scrap wire laying around, perfectly sorted and lined up, just waiting to be stripped. You might take in hundreds of different types of scrap wire per month, each with a different recovery rate, and most of it in random lengths! It will likely be twisted and tangled together on top of it all. Handling all of this efficiently by hand can be a nightmare! Is your old wire stripping machine really up to the job?
Fortunately, the StripMeisterTM E2000X automatic wire stripping machine makes taming this jumbled assortment of wire types simple. It features a two-piece front wire guide that makes quick work of adjusting the machine to different sizes. The motor speed can be precisely adjusted to a feed rate that produces the best results, too. It can handle everything from 16 gauge wire up to 2000MCM, and it has the ability to precisely change the cutting speed to the rate that best suits the material. With a little bit of sorting, you can quickly set the machine up to process wire in batches, get through your scrap wire piles and turn them into profits quickly!
Most of our customers report back to us that their StripMeisterTM E2000X has paid for itself in a matter of a few hours or days of operation with the typical jumble of different wire sizes via its huge improvement in their productivity.
Your investment with us
The E2000x Automatic Wire Stripping Machine is more than just a tool you buy to do a job. It represents our very best piece of wire stripping equipment for our most demanding customers. We have given it our premium electric motor drive, our finest wire feeder design, and built it to last for years out of high quality materials that can withstand a very tough environment. We back all of this up with a full, one-year warranty against manufacturing or material defects, and support it with prompt shipping of consumables when you need them and replacement parts should they become necessary.
Really, in these days of declining scrap metal prices and increasing costs, you can’t afford to do without one of these machines and the tremendous increase in productivity it brings.
Quick Facts
Constructed of aircraft grade aluminum and stainless steel hardware, it will never rust
Powerful, 1 HP PWM variable speed controlled DC motor (runs on 60Hz 120V AC)
Strips all sizes from #16 wire to 2000 MCM, Diameters from 0.11″ (2.7mm) up to 1.4″ (35.5mm) including ROMEX and braided (stranded) wire.
Handles Romex with a built-in guide in only two passes.
Blades last for about 8,000 feet or 8,000 pounds of wire apiece
One-year warranty against manufacturer defects, and a 30-day, money back return policy
Prompt shipping, and ready availability of replacement parts
Since there is no exact method for calculating the amount of electrical wiring for a remodel, new home, building or business, most electricians estimate the amount of each type of wiring they need from the blueprints or inside the home itself with the electrical outlets in place. After the wiring needs are totaled, it is customary to purchase an extra 250 feet of each type of wire on the roll, just to be sure and have enough of each type. After wiring a new job, you can have approximately 250 feet of 12-gauge, 14-gauge and ROMEX wiring.
To get the most out of your copper wire for each pound that you want to recycle, it should be stripped of the coverings so that it is #1, bright copper wiring with a shiny copper color. Stripping wire by hand is very expensive because it takes long hours and you would probably be paying an employee overtime to strip it by hand. There are many insurance claims associated with hand-stripping wire from employees cutting themselves that are Worker’s Compensation claims, which in turn cause an increase in your monthly rates.
Number one copper wire has to be perfectly clean without any other material on it, small bits of the casing, solder, paint or glue. If you fail to remove all of these materials from your copper wire, it will likely be classed as #2 copper wire because it is not “clean.”
Number 1 copper wire prices are at $2.10 per pound, whereas unstripped wire with the insulation on it is priced at only $0.75 per pound.
Using a wire stripper can speed up the process when you are stripping a large excess of wiring from jobs. A wire stripper removes all traces of any elements from bare bright #1 copper, even if you are stripping used wiring from a building or home that is being remodeled. That way it ensures you get the top price for your scrap copper, which is actually a by-product of your work and it puts money in your pocket.
For example, 50.59 feet of 12-gauge wire weighs one pound, and 80.44 feet of 14-gauge wire weighs one pound of bright #1 copper after it is stripped. ROMEX wiring weighs 164 pounds per 1,000 feet. Let’s say that you have saved excess wiring from jobs plus the used wiring from jobs that you rewired entirely and you have 10,000 feet of each of these three types of wire. Using a wire stripper to get the most money would net you 196.46 pounds of 12-gauge, 119.05 pounds of 14-gauge and 1640 pounds of ROMEX. At current prices you would get a total of 1955.51 pounds at $2.10 per pound or $4,106.57, which is a very good payday. The same amount of unstripped wire would only net you $1,466.63.
It is a great time to secure a StripMeister™ wire stripper, as copper prices are rising and you can make back the cost of the equipment quickly. After making that much off your scrap copper, all you get back is pure profit from a work horse such as the E2000. This model of automatic stripper strips all sizes wire from 14-gauge to 2000mcm wire. It has a 1 HP motor with variable speed and high torque for great performance and speed on a daily basis.
Still wondering if stripping that scrap, left over wire is worth it? Here are 5 reasons to say yes to a StripMeister™ today!
1) Rising Prices of Copper
In the last several days, the price of copper has risen 4.04 percent, and prices have increased steadily by 1.54 percent over the last 30 days and 12.98 percent over the last 90 days. This trend shows that copper prices are rising constantly at this point and is expected to increase in value steadily in the future market.
2) Maximizing Returns
The value of stripped bright #1 copper wire is three to four times the value of insulated, unstripped wire. Therefore regardless of the value of copper, you will always maximize your return
3) Legal and environmental Responsibility
Burning the casing off is now illegal and harms the environment, enough said.
4) Seriously? Stripping by hand?
Hand stripping is dangerous, tedious and ridiculously time consuming.
5) Wise Investing
Most people reported making their money back in hours of use. So in fact choosing the right StripMeister™ for the right job will simply be a smart business choice with nothing but upside.
There is a StripMeister™ model for every electrician, scrapper and handyman that fits into your budget easily.
Add to these 5 reasons free shipping and best prices in the business means there has never been a better time to order your own StripMeister™ today!
Many people prefer, for any number of reasons, to deliver unstripped wire to scrapyards. Whether they haven’t heard of the StripMeister™ yet, or simply don’t want to waste their time stripping cable, or haven’t yet understood the increased value of bare copper wire, the truth is scrapyards still have to deal with stripping a whole lot of wire every day.
The StripMeister™ E1000: A Case Study of an Industrial Strength Affordable Automatic Wire Stripping Machine
Meet Joe. Joe’s family owns a small scrapyard that takes in a couple of tons of unstripped copper wire every month. Joe’s job is to manually strip all that wire. Day in and day out Joe works with his knife, cutting his hands and wasting hours of valuable time that would be better applied to other tasks.
Before we go any further, let’s keep in mind that on average, copper wire weighs about 1.43 pounds per foot, which means that Joe has to strip approximately 2800 feet of copper wire each month. That can’t be fun. Joe is in dire need of a wire stripping machine, preferably an automatic wire stripper. Joe needs the StripMeister™ E1000. Let’s take a look at some numbers:
Features a 1/2 HP DC motor with variable speed drive, the E1000 can strip up to 110 feet of copper wire PER MINUTE. This means that Joe would only need about half an hour to complete a job that normally takes him about a month.
The E1000 strips all sizes of wire, from 18 gauge up to 1000mcm (.11″ to 1.4″ in diameter), including Romex, braided (stranded), aluminum and copper wire, making it the most versatile wire stripping tool on the market today.
The E1000 includes a variable speed control that allows the user to maintain a comfortable pace throughout the entire wire stripping operation.
The E1000 works at least 33% faster than any other wire stripper machine on the market today, making it not only an efficient choice, but also a cost-effective one.
The E1000 works outside in all types of inclement weather which makes it handy to take the wire stripping machine to the wire instead of the other way around.
In short, if you own a small to medium scrapyard, contracting company, maintenance business, or are an industrial or commercial electrician, the StripMeister™ E1000 can fulfill all your wire stripping needs in only a fraction of the time, allowing you to enjoy more free time for yourself, your family or taking on even more work.
Copper wire prices are increasing. That is a fact that cannot be denied. In the United States, just during the month of December 2015, we witnessed an increase of 0.5% per pound of scrap copper. And while this may not sound like much, when the increase over time factor is taken into account, it can add up to a nice chunk of change. But the price of copper scrap is not only about how many dollars you get paid per pound, the time invested into stripping the insulation off the wire is also a big part of your profit.
The Naked Truth: How Much Is Copper Worth? The price per pound of bare bright copper in the United State currently stands at about $2, depending on your specific location. But in reality this figure is not your bottom line, and your profit will depend on how much time it takes to prepare the copper wire you’ve accumulated. This is the turning point between a successful scrap copper business and one that just barely makes ends meet. So, how do you maximize your profit? The answer is simple: invest a few bucks into a StripMeister™ automatic wire stripper.
The StripMeister™ vs manual stripping: Let’s Have a Talk
One of the most important things to look at when you are in the scrap copper industry is efficiency. To some, manually stripping pounds and pounds of insulated copper wire may seem like a good idea, but let’s take a quick look at reality:
Manual Stripping
StripMeister™
Tedious and time consuming (can you say “boring”?)
Takes only minutes (it’s pretty fun also)
Dangerous (the danger to your fingers is very real)
Safe (your fingers don’t have to go anywhere near the blade)
Cost ineffective (there is no sense in wasting hours working only to end up with a few pounds of bare bright wire)
Cost effective (because the StripMeister™ Original allows the user to adapt a drill, it takes only about a third of the time)
Difficult, requires expertise. (Handling a blade with your hands requires a lot of skill, and all those scars can prove it.)
So easy, even a child can use it.(Simply put the wire through the orifice, adjust the blade, and turn it on. The stripping tool will do the rest.)
The bottom line is simple: Using a StripMeister™ will not only help you strip copper wire faster, it will actually make your business more profitable and allow you to enjoy more time doing what you love.
For many decades, the easiest way to recover scrap copper was to simply burn the casing off wires in an open fire and then collecting the resulting product. The problem with this method is that burning (or smoldering) the insulation off the wire in this manner is the single most contaminant processes of recovery, due to the fact that the plastic casing is burned at relatively low temperatures (between 250°C and 500°C), which results in an incomplete incineration and the release of pollutants and carcinogens into the atmosphere.
Some of these pollutants are polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDF), which result from the catalysis of copper, together with carbon monoxide (CO), sulphur dioxide (SO2), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, hydrogen chloride, heavy metals (including lead) and ash. These elements can contaminate not only the air, but also water and soil, leading to severe consequences both to the environment and the population!
Complete and utter ban on smoldering for recovery and recycling
It was because of this that the federal Clean Air Act of 1970 was amended in 1990 to add specific controls over 189 different toxic pollutants, including those generated by the burning of copper wire. The end result was a complete and utter ban on smoldering for recovery and recycling, an action that would be accompanied by hefty fines ($25,000 or more per day) and several years in prison (up to 5). To drive the point across in such a manner that no room for doubt would be allowed, there is currently a standing reward ($10,000) for those who report the burning of copper wires to the EPA.
This federal legislation, one of the most comprehensive in the world, was further enhanced by the creation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (signed by the United States in 2001), a global treaty that went into effect in 2004. Because of this, alternative methods had to be proposed for the proper treatment of copper wire for recycling, among which chopping, stripping, and high temperature incineration (above 850°C) were found to be the most adequate.
Cable Stripping as the Most Viable Alternative Process to Smoldering
Out of all the options proposed, the most viable is cable stripping. While there are many reasons for its viability, the most important one is the ability to fully recover the metal without leaving traces of it on the plastic insulation, together with its low cost and the fact that pollutants such as PCDD and PCDF cease to be of any concern, given that the copper is not allowed to become a catalyst for them.
But all is not perfect in the world of cable stripping, and doing the job manually without a wire stripper can present serious risks to the person performing the task. Cuts are commonplace, together with the partial amputation of fingers, and let’s not even consider the time it takes to get the job done. In short, manual stripping is time consuming and dangerous, which can put a big dent into profits.
On the other hand, an industrial wire stripping machine can prove to be the best investment of its kind, as it can handle individual strands of up to 200 feet per minute in a wide range of diameters.
Maximizing Profit while Cutting Costs
As it is well known, scrapyards will pay much less for unstripped wire. This is because they have to go through the stripping process themselves, with the same issues that were mentioned previously (lost time, potential hazards, etc.). To maximize profits, the best way to go about business is to deliver fully stripped wire.
When you invest in a stripping machine, you can increase your profits by well over 30% (depending on current prices for scrap copper). This means that you will recover the money you spent in a very short time, while reducing the costs generated by manual stripping (think of that trip to the ER you won’t have to make). The process itself will be much faster and production will increase, generating enormous benefits to your business and allowing for expansion.
All in all, given the fact that burning wire is illegal in the United States (as well as in Canada, the UK, and many other countries), and that you will face jail time if you so much as think of starting that fire, together with wanting to keep all of your fingers attached to your hands, an investment that will only give you positive returns is definitely one you will want to make.
Smart scrappers prowl auction websites looking for deals on bulk quantities of scrap wire! Your StripMeister Original Automatic Wire Stripping Machine makes it easy to turn big batches of scrap wire into #2 and #1 scrap copper, doubling or even tripling your money!
Are you out there with your trailer buying junk cars and then selling them whole at the local scrap yard? Don’t throw your profits away! Grab those wiring harnesses and feed them to your StripMeister Original wire stripping machine. Suddenly the material which would have sold for automotive shred prices is now selling for #2 or #1 copper prices!
Business owners and restaurant franchise managers often give their old junk equipment
Apprentice electricians don’t get paid well, but they get to keep scrap wire from tear-out & replace jobs to help compensate. They spend hours of their free time at home manually stripping wire. But as an experienced scrap metals entrepreneur, you know better! Offer them a fair price for their insulated wire scrap, bring it home to your StripMeister, and double or triple your investment!
TV scrappers know copper is king, and the degaussing cable has a thick sheaf of #1 bare bright hidden inside. But the wrapped insulation can turn into a sticky mess! The StripMeister Original is made for this! Cut off the thick part where the pigtail connects, and run the rest of it through the machine. You’ll be amazed at how much faster the insulation comes off!
How many scrap washers or dryers have you hauled into your local scrap yard whole? You left the wiring harness inside because it wasn’t worth your time to remove and strip, didn’t you? But your StripMeister Original makes the situation completely different! Now you can profitably pull the wiring harness out and strip the insulated copper wire into #2 or #1 copper!
So, you’re tearing down scrap computers, grabbing the valuable main boards, memory, and CPU chips. If you don’t have a StripMeister Original, you might as well leave the power supplies in the machines; it’s not worth your time to take them out. If you have North America’s number one selling wire stripping machine, it’s a different story! A few judiciously-applied chops with a sharp hatchet cleans the connectors off the straight, copper-filled wire. Zip it through your StripMeister, and turn what you used to sell for steel shred into #2 copper!
Scrappers in the real world know scrap wire doesn’t come neatly coiled in 100 foot lengths. Instead, it comes in lengths of a foot here and a few inches there which are hard to strip by hand. With a 
Not every wire scrappers take in can be stripped quickly or easily enough to make it profitable. But there is a surprisingly large class of wire you couldn’t profitably strip by hand that a StripMeister Original can power right through! Quality vacuum cleaners have long lengths of 16 gauge power cord, for example. Stripping it by hand will cost more money than you earn! But your StripMeister Original Automatic Wire Stripping machine makes these cords profitable! Next time you see a vacuum on the curb, don’t just snip the wire and toss it into the ICW box, strip it and double or triple your money!
The most common wire in North America is Romex household electrical wire. Found in virtually every structure, a LOT of it is torn out every single day during remodeling projects. When you strip it by hand, you only earn a couple of dollars an hour!
