>> Well, I don't know where my soldering iron, solder or wire cutters are.
>> And I know from experience that trying to strip wires is approximately
>> impossible, and trying to tin the ends is very tricky.
> 
> Using propper snips gently compress the insulation,about a 1/4 to 3/8 of 
> an inch (6 to 10 mm) rotate the snips 90 degrees left then right. 
> Release the wire and grip it again where you first gripped it with the 
> snips and pull. Alternatively using a sharp knife, score the insulation 
> to the wire all round the wire and pull the insulation off with your 
> fingernails or teeth.

With the thickness of wire I'm using, 6 mm would be several times the 
total diammeter of the wire. ;-)

> To tin stranded wire twist the strands so that none are sticking out. 

Oddly, this is significantly harder than you'd think...

> Have either a loop of multicore solder sitting on your bench with a 
> couple of inches sticking up or your spool of solder with some solder 
> sticking up. Tin the iron with solder so that there is a drip on the 
> iron and tin a little bit of the wire. Take the wire to the top of the 
> solder and with the iron, gently melt the solder whilst drawing the wire 
> through the melted solder.
> It is harder to write it than to do it. :-)

The 30-year-old solder I found seems to be quite "bubbly", which makes 
it difficult to do this. It also doesn't seem to want to melt very 
evenly, resulting on lots of blobs, or only one side of the wire tinned.

Now I remember why I wanted to buy wire ready-cut. ;-)

Still, I have just spent about an hour sitting on my driveway with a 
workmate, several bunches of wire and a soldering iron. People probably 
think I'm weird now... Everybody's out mowing the lawn, riding bicycles, 
having a BBQ or sunbathing, and some sad tosser over at number 11 is 
sitting with a bunch of wires and tools.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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