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Unpopular opinion: that $8 coax stripper from the hardware store bin beat my $40 one on a 3 hour job in Mesa | Cable Installers - Chatter Central

paul286•7d ago

Unpopular opinion: that $8 coax stripper from the hardware store bin beat my $40 one on a 3 hour job in Mesa

I always figured the cheap strippers in the bargain bin were junk, so I ran a Milwaukee for two years and never looked back. Last month I was doing a 6 outlet install in Mesa and my good one was back in the truck 40 feet away, so I grabbed the $8 no name one the homeowner had on his workbench just to save a walk. Cut all 6 ends with it, and every single one was clean on both the braid and the center conductor, no nicks, no re-dos. I checked it against my good one on a scrap piece and the blade sat at the same depth. My foreman swears the cheap ones go dull after 50 cuts, and maybe he is right, but at 8 bucks I can buy 5 of them for what I paid for the fancy one. Been using it for a month now on every job and it has not let me down yet. Your mileage may vary I guess, but has anyone else had a cheap tool outlast the pricey one on you?

2 comments

2 Comments

williams.jenny1d ago

Two years ago I would have called you crazy for trusting a bargain bin tool on a real job. I was the guy who only bought name brand stuff because my old boss drilled it into my head that cheap meant rework. But hearing that the blade depth matched your Milwaukee on a scrap piece is the part that got me, because that's the whole ballgame with a stripper. @morgan_bailey93 is right that half of it is just a name on the same chunk of metal, and the 50 cut thing sounds like something your foreman heard once and never checked. I still like my good tools but I am not gonna act like the cheap ones are junk anymore.

morgan_bailey931d ago

Honestly this is just how it goes with a lot of stuff people buy. The fancy version is often the same chunk of metal with a nicer name stamped on it, and you are paying extra for the label and the warranty. Same thing happens with kitchen knives and phone cables and those little hand tools, the cheap one does the job fine until it doesn't, and by then you got your money out of it. What gets me is the blade depth lining up the same, that tells you the guts are identical and the price is just about marketing. The dull after 50 cuts thing might be true on some brands but your foreman probably never actually counted, he just heard it somewhere. At 8 bucks you can toss it and grab another without even thinking about it, that alone makes it the smarter buy.