Knipex Universal Dismantling Tool– Review

This review focuses on the Knipex 16 85 125 SB a product featured in Knipexs wire stripping range. Marketed as a ‘Universal dismantling tool’ due to its Swiss army knife range of features, it is basically a more useful version of your bog standard wire strippers.

The tool fits into a bracket most electricians would use all day, especially with its ability to strip all common single-core wires from 0.2mm to 4.5mm and multi-core cables from 8.0mm up to 13mm. The handy retractable blade on the reverse is useful for dispatching the cellophane on new cable reels and although very sharp most standard cable ties will defect the blade.

Knipex have also installed an additional blade for longer longitudinal stripping for use on the larger range of OD (Outside Diameter) wires, 10 – 13mm. On smaller wires the blade has a habit of drawing itself in to deep and damaging the inner cores insulation.

All of the stripping blades are housed within the tool with no external cutting surfaces, the main stripping blades work by opening the tool and sandwiching a wire between the relevant crescents followed by a twist and pull action. As long as the correct stripping blades are selected the tool has no problem quickly removing the sleeving from any type of cable.

Another plus side to the tool is its lightweight and compactness as it easily slips into or clips onto your pocket when not in use.

The only negative I have really found is that the tool is unable to strip wires from 5mm to 7.5mm but Knipex do offer the Dismantling tool for data cables which has the ability to strip all wires from 0.2mm single core to 10mm multicore, for the non-professional this would defiantly be the more useful tool.

Conclusion:

In all this is another great product from Knipex which I really get on with and find exceptionally easy to use, which for me was a nice surprise as most of the fancy stripping tools and pliers I have used always seem a bit cumbersome and awkward.

Although hard to get hold of due to the lack of UK Knipex suppliers (I had to purchase mine from Amazon) I think this Dismantling tool or the data type version is really worth the money. Its compact construction and simplicity really gives it the edge over most other stripping tools, especially the super bulky automatic versions which are more common now.

Overall a great product which I doubt any professional electrician would fail to be impressed with.