Reader Find: GB’s Cable Ripper
By Chuck Cage
James writes: “This cabler ripper was recommended to me by a guy who spend 15 years doing electrical work for the Navy. I believe his exact words were, ‘You have to get one of these.’ He was right.” (For the non-electricians out there, this tool is used to split open Romex and other large wire.)
James did his best to dig this out of the Gardner Bender site for us, and we truly appreciate the effort. The GB site majorly sucks in that it’s damn near impossible to find anything specific — and once you do they have no photographs or extended descriptions. They do offer a PDF catalog, if you’re willing to download it all and page through it. (You’ll notice that I’m going to link to Lowe’s rather than the corporate site. If you’d like to find this tool on the corporate site, James recommends looking under “hand tools” in the “catalog” section. Good hunting.)
The good news: it’s under $2 at Lowe’s, which means you should be able to find it pretty much anywhere.
Gardner Bender Cable Ripper [Lowe's]
Street Pricing [Froogle]
December 21st, 2006 at 11:39 am
I agree, it’s insanely tedious to do any romex wiring without one of these.
If you buy one used (I bought mine at a garage sale), spend a little time sharpening the blade.
December 21st, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Forgive my ignorance, but I don’t get how it works. It sounds like it takes the outside shielding off of romex without hurting the wires inside, but I don’t get it from looking at the pic. Sorry for the ignorance. If this worked better than peeling the romex with a knife, I’d be very, very excited. Thanks!
December 21st, 2006 at 1:07 pm
It does work better than a knife, which is also what I’ve always done.
Basically, it’s got a little 1/8 inch blade on the inside - you wrap it around the romex and put pressure to squeeze the tool, and pull.. it cuts a slit down the middle of the romex sheathing, and from there, it’s easy to peel back as needed.
The one pictured is more for stripping the sheething at the end of a run.. They also make a side entry model (like this) that allows you to take a cable in the middle of a run and slice it up to splice another line in or put a new box in or something.
December 21st, 2006 at 3:04 pm
Looks like $2 well-spent, thanks for the explanation Rick.
December 21st, 2006 at 4:41 pm
The telecom industry has a similar set of tools. The PK Neuses N-2060 “ring cutting tool” cuts the jacket around the cable to a preset depth (about 3/32″), then the N-2878 slits it from the cut down to the end. If you want to work on the middle of a cable, use the 2060 to make two circumferential cuts and use the 2878 to connect them longitudinally. The Neuses tools are made for working with PVC-insulated multipair cables, typically between 6 and 100 pair.
The Xcelite DCS-204 performs both operations, and is depth-adjustable. The handle has an offset swiveling blade in it, not dissimilar from the deburring tool posted recently. The angular clamp holds the cable against the blade. Simply spin it around the cable and then pull it off the end, and the insulation falls right off. This one’s more commonly used on heavy-gauge power cables (primary distribution cables are usually 750kcmil) which have thicker insulation.
March 14th, 2007 at 8:39 am
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