An old electrician told me to stop stripping wire with my lineman's pliers and I fought him on it for months

I was on a commercial job in Austin last summer, running EMT for a new office build. This 60 year old sparky named Dave watched me strip a 12 AWG with my linesman's and just shook his head. He said I was nicking the copper and creating a hot spot that could fail down the line. I laughed it off at first because I'd been doing it that way since trade school. But after he showed me a failed splice from a previous job where the wire was cracked right at the stripper mark, I caved. I switched to using the correct gauge hole on my Klein strippers every single time and honestly my connections feel tighter now. Anyone else ever have an old timer call them out on a habit that turned out to be bad practice?

2 comments

2 Comments

wright.michael2d ago

Old Dave probably still uses a flip phone too but he wasn't wrong.

john_murphy2d ago

Well I had a flip phone until 2019 so I guess that makes me Old Dave Jr. Can't argue with the guy though, even if his phone takes 20 minutes to send a text.