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Had a 'hold my beer' moment about coax prep after 7 years in the game
I was at a job over on Maple Street last Tuesday replacing a bad drop line for an older couple. The signal was trash and I kept blaming the tap or the ground block. My journeyman came by to check my work and just watched me strip the cable with my usual cutter. He asked why I was leaving the dielectric all scratched up and I said that's just how it comes out. He took the tool from my hand and showed me how to score the jacket without digging into the foam. After 7 years I had been putting tiny little damage on every single connector I ever installed. It explained so many intermittent signal issues I had chased over the years. Has anyone else had a basic prep habit that turned out to be messing up your connections this whole time?
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ward.jamie1mo ago
@the_piper had a good idea with the shim thing, but what worked for me was just switching to the Ideal T-stripper and taking it real slow the first few times. The depth stop on that tool is dead on if you keep the cable straight and rotate it smooth. I practiced on about 30 feet of scrap coax one afternoon to build the muscle memory, and now I don't even think about it.
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leo_black761mo ago
Does your journeyman have a trick for keeping the scoring depth consistent or do you just have to develop the feel for it over time?
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