The Best Wire Strippers of 2023

Manually cutting the insulating jacket of a tiny wire with a sharp knife or razor and then stripping it off with your fingers can result in cutting through the entire wire rather than just the jacket, so we were excited to test the Jonard Tools small wire stripper. It handles narrow wires between 18 and 22 gauge, and we found it very easy to use.

At first glance, however, the Jonard wire stripper is underwhelming. It’s entirely made from plastic—even the stripping blades are plastic. Still, we found the Jonard tool quite handy for stripping fine wires.

The tool works through a simple premise: By turning a small wheel at one end, the blades adjust to accommodate different size wires. After that, all that’s required is squeezing the top and bottom sides of the tool to create enough pressure to cut through the wire’s insulated jacket. It works, but only for fine wires; anything larger than 18 gauge won’t fit, and the plastic construction probably wouldn’t stand up to heavier-gauge wires.

A small black slider allowed us to adjust the length of the stripped section of the wire easily. Unfortunately, the provided increments are not labeled—we just had to know the difference between ¼- and ⅛-inch increments. We wished the cutting blades and the turning wheel were made of metal to last longer, but the Jonard does perform the function it was designed for—stripping fine wires—and as such, it’s a boon for those who work with electronics.

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Get the Jonard Tools wire strippers at Amazon, Lowe’s, or The Home Depot.