Ideas for a building a Romex stripper

My uncle used to work for an elevator installation Co. in Milwaukee, and brought huge rolls of heavy gauge electrical wire out to our place in the country for that purpose when I was a kid. Pretty nasty stuff to be putting in the air. Mike

jwmay said:
Fire is the preferred stripping method in these parts. But making a tool could be fun.
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Burning coal for power is pretty nasty as well, until it gets put in an electric 'zero emissions ' car........
 
I wonder how much better the plastic insulation is for the soil it'll be planted in at the landfill. I guess maybe it could be sent out into the ocean where it does no harm. Point being: After the plastic is made there really is no good way to dispose of it.
 
Most scrapyards will take Romex, BX, MC and other types wire/cable, as is. Yes, you get less than the bare copper price but considering the time & labor it will take to strip all the insulation off, is it it worth it?

I recently cashed in a house worth of Romex and got about $600 for it. It took about an hour and a half to cash in. If I spent the estimated 2-3 days stripping it I could have gotten around $1,200-1500. Not worth the extra effort for me. I suppose it comes down to how much free time one has.

Also, the scrapyard will send that wire to a processing plant that will recycle both the copper and the plastic insulation.
 
FDM 3D printers have a mechanism for feeding plastic line into the extruder. It may not be robust enough for your purposes, but it might be possible to make something similar-but-beefier. Why totally re-invent the wheel if you don't have to.
 
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