Anyone familiar with Straightwire Black Silc


I recently bought a pair of Straightwire Black Silc cables that were much longer than I needed. My intention ws to remove the poor condition banana plugs, cut the cable to length and reterminate with spades. I've done this before with good results as crimpimg and soldering is something I'm very familiar with. However, these cables use stranded wire that is coated with a substance that isolates each strand. I scraped the cable with a pocet knofe which allowed a continuity check but that didn't remove all of the coating. Also tried heat but this had no noticeable effect. My question is, how can I remove this coating without harming the cable? Anyone done this before.
I will say the cable looks to be very well made.
timrhu
The reason for the insulated multi-strand wire design (some with a teflon or nylon rod at the core) has to do with solving time smear, and began with Bruce Brisson's (owner of MIT) original design for Monster Cable. The cables consist of two or more different gauges of wire, with the thinner wire wrapped around the heavier wire, which means that for a given length of cable there's a longer length of thinner wire than fatter wire.

Why do this? It became known that HF favors traveling along surfaces and/or thin conductors, and at a higher propagation speed than LF, which tend to favor thicker gauge wire and travel slower. So by making the thin wire longer than the thick wire, the faster HF has to travel further than the slower LF and so they meet up at the other end of the cable at the same time. This leads to better image and soundstage and better rendition of timbres and overtones. Eliminating time smear is the holy grail of cable design.

With cables designed like Straightwire, Monster, MIT (and probably 90% of all other brands) it's essential that all the various wire sizes (which are insulated from each other along the cable itself) be tied together electrically at each end. Otherwise, the high and low frequencies may not take their intended route(s), thus defeating the built-in time smear correction.
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Wouldn't dispute the science behind that concept but it is hard to concieve seven feet of cable causing a noticeable smearing. It takes better ears or more discerning listening habits than I posess to catch it.
Tim, whether or not one agrees with the science/theory, the undisputable fact is that if you don't connect all the wire strands together electrically at each end of the cable, then you are not using its full conducting capability.
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For sure Nsgarch. That's what stopped me. I was checking continuity to ensure I wired properly when I found I could only get a reading on the very end of the wire. If I pressed hard enough the meter would read through the coating but that ain't gonna cut it. It would be a waste of cable to crimp, solder and hope for the best.
Hopefully, Straightwire's customer service is adequate. Thanks for all the advice.
Well after emailing Straightwire and doing a little research it looks like buying a solder pot is the way to go. As a decent new one goes for $300+, I'll keep my eyes open on ebay and see what they go for there. Straightwire wants $26.50 per spade, that's more than $300 for the pair of cables. I know I can do it for less and just as well.