"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
Wild_Bill wrote:
Scissors seem to be popular, or used to be, with some electrical-types
that came came over to the USA from the Mediterranean area to work on a
manufacuring plant expansion.

Right. Didn't know that.

Those notches in the scissor are used for stripping soft insulation (in
SO, SJ multi-conductor cords) by pulling the wire over the notch with a
thumb pressed on the wire, but it just seemed a little crude to me. Not
effective at all for tough insulation.

Indeed. There are similar but tougher devices that work in the same way.

There are numerous special knife blades and sheath rippers for removing
outer jackets from cabling, so I couldn't figure out why electricians
would need to use scissors for anything in particular.. cutting off a
length of tape instead of just tearing it? Not likely.

In the UK the common house cabling is called Twin and Earth, which is
solid core. The ECC is bare and the whole cover in an outer sheath. All
you need to do to remove the outer is to cut a slot in it at the start
with a knife, then pull the ECC down the sheath at right angles. Which
saves any possibility of damage to the 'live' conductor's insulation.


That sounds like 'Romex'.


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Greed is the root of all eBay.