Just heard a guy say he trims coax with his teeth and I can't stop thinking about it

I was at a supply house in Austin yesterday picking up some RG6 connectors and I overheard this older installer telling a new guy that he just bites through the coax with his teeth when he doesn't have cutters handy. Not even joking, he said it with a straight face and the kid looked horrified. I had to walk away because I was laughing too hard, but it got me thinking about all the weird shortcuts I've seen people take on the job. Like I've definitely used my pocket knife to strip cable in a pinch, but biting it? That's a whole new level of commitment to not walking back to the truck. The kid asked him if he ever got shocked and the guy just shrugged and said "not bad enough to stop." Has anyone else run into installers with totally questionable methods like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

sarah8181mo ago

Read somewhere that a guy bit into a coax that had a slow leak from a power line nearby and it basically welded his fillings together. He said his mouth tasted like pennies for a week. Hard pass on that noise.

the_xena1mo ago

Coax is usually carrying like 50-60 volts max on a live line so it's not gonna kill you but still, jamming that into your teeth is straight up nasty. Did you ask if he's ever had to get a tetanus shot or if he just lets his gums callous up like a lifelong meth chewer?

the_emery1mo ago

Oh man, I gotta push back a little on the voltage thing. Coax lines aren't really sitting at 50-60 volts unless something's seriously wrong or it's a powered line from a headend. Most standard cable TV or internet coax is carrying way less, like under 10 volts for signal stuff. The real danger with biting into coax isn't the voltage though, it's the possibility of it being an aerial line that got hit by lightning or crossed with a power line. That's a whole different ballgame. So yeah, still nasty, but the shock risk is pretty tiny unless you're unlucky enough to grab a damaged line. Have you ever seen what happens when power and coax get tangled up in a storm?