I tried acetone with the magnet wire I have. It did not work.
Also heated solder blob did not melt the insulation.

There is a certain thermoplastic coated copper wire that is designed for rapid prototyping. This will melt with a soldering iron.
It came with the Vector P173 wiring pencil.

 

Certainly adding a blob of solder will very much improve the heat transfer. Solder conducts heat MUCH faster than air! That is why so many of the descriptions on how to solder are so very ineffective. Just a small amount of solder and the heat transfer will make the joint, or in this case the wire, temperature rise very rapidly. And yes, you do need the higher temperature tip.

 

@MrChips Thnak you for trying and confirming back !
@MisterBill2 im not lying when I said I was doing it inside a melted solder blob, with the wire at 1mm distance to the iron tip that was keeping the blob liquid. I did it on a piece of wood, not in air like in the movie.
I believe I dont have the temperature for it. By the ear, I'd say I need somewhere of 400 to 500 dgr Celsius in this range.
If someone here can experiment with heat on a 'normal' enameled wire, mine is 0.25mm diameter, and find under controlled temperature, what is the melting point of this insulator? I dont have any such precision heating wire or device, but maybe you do.
I was thinking on a MINIature heat inductance circuit, since I have that copper (conductor) wire that can get red hot and melt the insulator. It should evaporate the insulator... its the best idea I have (so far). But I really dont know if it will actually work, and also I have no idea how to build one (yet).

 

If you overheat copper, it will oxidize and get brittle. The solder keeps oxygen away so it works. Simply heating copper in air is not a good idea.

 

@MrChips Thnak you for trying and confirming back !
@MisterBill2 im not lying when I said I was doing it inside a melted solder blob, with the wire at 1mm distance to the iron tip that was keeping the blob liquid. I did it on a piece of wood, not in air like in the movie.
I believe I dont have the temperature for it. By the ear, I'd say I need somewhere of 400 to 500 dgr Celsius in this range.
If someone here can experiment with heat on a 'normal' enameled wire, mine is 0.25mm diameter, and find under controlled temperature, what is the melting point of this insulator? I dont have any such precision heating wire or device, but maybe you do.
I was thinking on a MINIature heat inductance circuit, since I have that copper (conductor) wire that can get red hot and melt the insulator. It should evaporate the insulator... its the best idea I have (so far). But I really dont know if it will actually work, and also I have no idea how to build one (yet).

Heating the wire with a solder blob on a wood block is how I do it when I have a few ends to skin and tin. It works well, and the charred block has a nice depression to hold the solder blob. It does help to have some solder flux as well, either from flux core solder or from a separate supply.

 

https://www.homedepot.com/c/ab/best-paint-stripper-for-your-project/9ba683603be9fa5395fab907afde838

 

If the gauge is rigid enough, I'd try 1000 grit wrapped grit inward on a short dowel, trying different diameters.
Have the grit extend past the dowel a little longer than how much to strip.
Chuck it up in a drill, spin direction to not snag with grit end, trying different speeds.
Walk the wire around to sand entire wire end.
Try lower than 1000 grit, but I'd stop ~400.
Good Hunting, <<<)))

 

https://www.homedepot.com/c/ab/best-paint-stripper-for-your-project/9ba683603be9fa5395fab907afde838

I get this lovely page from your link:

 

It was about chemical paint strippers. Don't know why you got a lock out. The best chemical strippers are some times called "aircraft strippers". But from what I saw when I was looking for them it seems like they are being phased out. They contained methylene chloride and are now considered too dangerous for people to use. But they actually work as paint strippers.

 

With this picture you can see:
1- how heavily these wires are crossing each other, and thats why I count on their thick insulation not to short eachother, and so far I never had any accidents. I had even worse than these presented here. Never failed me.
2- how big the end deinsulation really is, about 2 to 4mm long for this 0.25 diam wire.
I can tell you, it is VERY small the end that I need to deinsulate.
So far the knife is giving me the most precision !!! But is very time consuming and I get tired relatively quickly.


I was imagining, you know this mechanical wood pencil sharpener? Right?

Well, something similar, not to sharpen but to deinsulate the wire, to scrub it fast on the end, bzzzz and done in seconds. Haha.
Mmmm.

 

One way is with molten NaOH which has the melting point of lead. Followed by water rinse. PPE and ventilation required. Pretty extreme.

 

Why not just use solderable enameled copper wire. This is a link to one supplier.
If you google "solderable enameled copper wire" you will probably fine may other suppliers.

Les.

 

Look up Belden Beldsol. It evaporates when touched by a hot soldering iron tip. You may have to pay a little more for it but it is a joy to work with.

 

I try what you say and show me with the iron tip and the drop of tin (also from the movie), but is not working on my wire.
1- maybe the insulation that I have is more resistant to heat than usual, maybe is a very good quality insulator, like @MrSalts said, they are many type of cheap and good quality. If it helps, mine have a darker red color , like the very old transformers from the 90's and 80's. The copper wire color in the movie, was almost transparent and yes I could see how FAST it melted away under the tip of the heat iron. Mine is like cement in there. I like it actually to be this resilient to heat. But now I need it not to be.
2- The iron heat is not that hot. After watching the video, I remembered that I have a knob on my heating iron station , and I turn it to maximum, repeated the experiment with the tin blob drop, I even put DIRECTLY the tip of the iron on the wire isolation, I wait like 30s to 1min and NOTHING ! I mean, I have to really scrub in all this time to actually reach the copper under the isolation and to see that starting wire tinning. I didn't measure the temperature of the tip of my iron though. I THINK is around 300 dgr Celsius. 350 maybe? At its maximum. And I usually run it at 70-80% from it's knob.
--
I also tried the sand paper method, and in my case, is creating a long transition from wire end with exposed copper towards the virgin insulator. I guess im not that used on doing it with sandpaper. I have very fine sandpaper of 250 grit. And it worked excellent but with a long transition compared with the 2-5 mm (precise removal with knife) that I require.

I don't think it only has to do with the heat in the example video, but also with the type of flux that it is in the solder wire. The reaction of the flux with the enamel is activated by the heat from the soldering iron. There are different types of flux available in soldering wire. Your soldering wire probably has less reactive flux.
I have had success with high-concentration sulfuric acid (98%) to take off the ends of thin enamel (wire 0.4mm). I made diy Litz wire for motor winding. Note that it is the hydronium ions that react with the copper. Hydronium ions form when sulfuric acid is dissolved/diluted in water. It takes a while, and obviously, you should not leave it too long as it will eventually corrode the copper.

 

Borrow the wife's nail varnish remover.

Payback for all of your isopropanol that she has “borrowed” to clean the windows!

 

Paint thinner does not normally remove paint that has dried.
Acetone or MEK usually will.
Your local hardware store should sell both.

 

Two methods. Especially useful when You are working with such modern engineering wonderworks as diameter of 0.03 mm or even 0.06 mm.

1) aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid).
It is used similarly like colophonium crystall. Just put it on the table and wire on the tablet, with soldering hummer slide over the wire let the aspirin melts. Try to not breath in the fumes to avoid cough.
The "stomach savy aspirin" may not be used, it contains 50% with microcellulose. Mst be rude, strong natural aspirin from russia or it satellite countries where it is still in use. One tablet may clean several tens of wire ends.

2) take the small pot about 1 cm3 and fill 2/3 with ethanol. Propanol, butanol and metanol, as well acetoone are far less effective but still better than nothing. ignite the flame in that crucible. Flame will be just about unseenable, just about transparent, but on the dark background one may clearly see it. So, if wire is 0.3....0.1 mm then insert it in the flame, keep second about, and when it become red, immerse in the liquid in that crucible. Then flame may be suffocated down. Spiritus vinae makes a chemical reaction You was looking for. When wire is 0.03...0.09 mm then it is too narrow and immediately will melt. Therefore before to immerse in flame it must be winkeled like litz-wire two or four layers, and that technology works brilliant. Must work rather fast otherhow the ethanol will begin to boil in the flask and that is unacceptable.

 

I don't think it only has to do with the heat in the example video, but also with the type of flux that it is in the solder wire. The reaction of the flux with the enamel is activated by the heat from the soldering iron. There are different types of flux available in soldering wire. Your soldering wire probably has less reactive flux. The type of enamel might also prevent the soldering method from working.
I have had success with high-concentration sulfuric acid (98%) to take off the ends of thin enamel (wire 0.4mm). I made diy Litz wire for motor winding. Note that it is the hydronium ions that react with the copper. Hydronium ions form when sulfuric acid is dissolved/diluted in water. It takes a while, and obviously, you should not leave it too long as it will eventually corrode the copper.
I 3D-printed a jig to keep the wires separate. This prevents capillary action from pulling up the acid along the wire where you don't want it. Set the length that you want stripped by adjusting the height of the acid in the beaker. After cleaning many wires the dissolved enamel fouls the solution a bit and it takes longer to strip. An improvement would be to clean the acid afterwards.

 

The insulation on the wire that is intended to be removed by soldering heat is certainly NOT the kind used for high temperature power transformers or harsh duty DC motors found in older military surplus. I have a few coils of that left over from a company that rewound transformers, and closed down about 1960. I got the wire with the anticipation of winding transformers, or using it for antennas. Then I discovered that some punks in the area did not believe anyone should have an outside wire antenna. So I just hung on to it. A soldering iron will not phase that insulation, and even paint remover only softens it. A candle flame will burn it off , it smells nasty, but it does work. Then scrape it off gently with the back edge of an XACTO knife blade, avoiding nicking the wire. Clean it up gently with sandpaper and it will tin quite well. With the current price of copper it makes sense to use the older stuff.

 

Janis59 proposed a good method with aspirin. Suitable for thin wires as well. Good ventilation required or work outdoors . After enamel is removed, solder the wire in pure colophonium several times to remove aspirin residue completely