Stripping SWA for copper

[naylorpd]

I'm in Azerbaijan, and in our company store we have a number of drums of cable, all upwards of 5 years old and basically unsaleable. We're looking at the possibility of selling for scrap and the usual question is whether to sell it as-is or to strip it ourselves down to bare copper.The selling price for unstripped cable is about 1/3 of the price of bare copper.

All the cable is SWA and the range of sizes we have includes 4x16, 4x25, 4x50, 1x35, 3x10, 3x16. Some are PVC insulated, some are LSF. Each drum has typically 200-300m of cable but some are up to 600m. My understanding is that each core is individually insulated, then there is insulation over all the cores, then the SWA, then a final insulation over the whole lot.

We have a couple of warehouse guys who could do this (so are paying for their time anyway) and basic tools but no specialist machinery. They had a go this afternoon and managed about 2m in half an hour but just using a knife to cut the insulation which sounds very inefficient, not to say dangerous.

So my question is if there is a cost & time-effective way/method of stripping these cables?
Thanks

 

[nicebutdim]

You can buy a cable stripper at reasonable prices from online marketplaces. The sizes you list are definitely worth stripping, but whether to do so manually, or by mechanical means, might depend upon cost of labour relative to the cost of machine delivered locally for a one off job. Cables would still need to be cut into manageable lengths. First run through machine would strip outer sheath, then armour, bedding and wrapping removed manually, before individual cores would again be mechanically stripped of their insulation.

 

[Vortigern]

oops video don't work never mind then

 

[naylorpd]

Like this?

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It looks like we'd have to separate the SWA into individual cores by hand, then use the machine only on the individual wires, as it isn't big enough to feed the whole 4 cores in - nor the 50mm, but we only have about 300m of that. But that's still better than doing all by hand.

Labour is effectively free, because I pay for it anyway and they have time available to do this.

 

[nicebutdim]

I'd imagine the maximum of 38mm is OD, rather than nominal cable size in mm2. As such, it should handle 50mm 4 core SWA.

 

[telectrix]

I'd be moreinclned to try and sell the able as is. surely there's buyers out there will want it.

 

[nicebutdim]

I'd be moreinclned to try and sell the able as is. surely there's buyers out there will want it.

Must admit that I'm also curious why being upwards of 5 years old would make it unsaleable. Granted I expect wholesalers to provide cable with a recent manufacture date, but there should be plenty of buyers out there for copper cables.