Shoutout to the guy who told me to use a fish tape for coax in old walls

Honestly, I always thought fish tapes were just for low voltage or pulling wire through conduit. On a job last month in a 1950s house with plaster walls, I was trying to run a new coax line and hitting nothing but dead ends with my usual fiberglass rods. The homeowner, an older guy who used to do phone lines, saw me struggling and said, 'Kid, try a steel fish tape. It'll punch right through that old lath.' I was skeptical but grabbed mine from the truck. Ngl, it went through like butter where the rods just bent. The stiffness let me steer it past the obstructions. I got the line run in under twenty minutes after fighting it for over an hour. Now I keep a good steel tape on my belt for any pre-1970s install. Anyone else have a simple tool they wrote off that ended up saving the day?

3 comments

3 Comments

murphy.linda1mo ago

My buddy swore by a manual wire stripper he once called useless.

grace5081mo agoMost Upvoted

Maybe he just got better at using it over time, idk.

butler.finley25d ago

I mean, are we really getting worked up over a wire stripper though?