Just realized I was stripping coax cable wrong for 4 years

I always stripped coax by scoring the jacket with my razor blade and pulling it off. Worked fine for years. Then last month a senior guy from Comcast watched me do it and goes "you're gonna nick the braid doing that." He showed me the right way with a proper cable stripper tool. First time I used one I was done in like 3 seconds flat with zero damage. Felt like an idiot. Anyone else learn they were doing something basic the hard way?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamie9401d ago

That's a decent tip but the braid's only nicked if you're heavy handed with the blade.

rowan_thomas841d ago

Heard from a buddy who used to do cable installs that even a tiny nick in the braid can mess with signal strength over time, especially with longer runs inside walls... Like that little damage just gets worse as the cable gets older. I never thought about it until he explained it, just figured it was fine as long as the copper core looked clean. Makes you wonder how many connections I've got in my walls that are slowly getting worse because of a bad strip job years ago.