After 50 years of doing it the hard way, or not at all, here is a couple tips to help you strip insulation from copper wire, and to recover the brass from plug ends.
Forget knives and expensive wire strippers, unless you really have a lot of wire to strip. For most types of insulation, grab a vegetable peeler, place the wire on a solid surface, push down solidly on the peeler and pull the wire under the peeler.
plug ends: boil the ends in water until they soften enough to pull the brass prongs out with pliers. You must wear gloves in doing this.

I've never used a vegetable peeler, but I'm going to pick one up from the thrift store and try it out! I saw a video somewhere of a piece of steel with 3 holes drilled in it that fit a plug prongs (with ground prong). The guy would put the plug on one side and pull the prongs out with channel lock pliers from the other side. I've never tried it, but it seemed to work very well. I'm sure it would be even easier if they were softened after soaking in the boiling water!

Thanks for the tip!

This is the setup I use.

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42 6F 61 72 64 73 6F 72 74 2E 63 6F 6D