It can be tough to find a good pair of wire strippers these days. Many hardware stores will carry models designed for electricians and sized for household wiring, but such strippers are usually unsuitable for Arduino/robotics/small electronics projects. If you plan to work with wires finer than about 18-gauge (solid) or 20-gauge (stranded), you’re going to need appropriately sized wire strippers.
Klein’s Kurve (copper wire) strippers are the best I’ve used to date, with model 11057 (pictured here) being perfect for small wiring tasks. Model 11055 is better suited for general-purpose use. This stripper (11057) can handle 20-30 gauge solid wires and 22-32 gauge stranded.
Klein Kurve stripper handles are lightly cushioned and extremely comfortable to grip. The curved shape of the self-opening handles also helps the tool fit into tight work areas in case you need to grab or manipulate something with the front jaws.
Most reputable-brand wire strippers have accurately sized stripping holes and sharp wire cutters, and this stripper is no different. A stripped wire is a stripped wire, and I’m not going to tell you that these strippers will give you noticeably different results.
These strippers are the best I’ve used, not because they can strip wires any differently – although they do strip and cut effortlessly – but because they feel so much better in-hand than the other styles I’ve tried. Here’s a showcase of all the wire strippers in my tool box if you want to see what I’m comparing these to.
Markings on the front are colored in for higher visibility, and additional features include a wire looping and bending hole, and threaded holes to cut 6-32 and 8-32 machine screws down to size.
You can find these strippers at Home Depot and independent distributors for about $16-20 each.
Do you have a favorite wire stripper or cutters? We’d love to hear about it!
Stuart Deutsch is a tool enthusiast, critic, and collector, and writes his passion at ToolGuyd.
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