I've been working with electrical circuits as a DIYer for years, including electronics and powerline work. But one thing I always feel like I do a terrible job at is stripping wires: both the outside jacket and the insulators from the conductors...
Perhaps I'm being over paranoid, but if I nick the insulators when I'm cutting the jacket, or if I nick or scrape the insulator I will cut back past this injury and start over. I want something that an inspector would give the thumbs up, because I might as well do it right while I'm doing it. But, this always tends to take a while to cut just through the insulator and not any further. I've tried tools from knives to sharp wire cutters to duller wire cutters to specific wire strippers.
My current mechanism is to just use a knife and be extremely careful while cutting the insulation or jacket, but it is fairly time-consuming and error-prone. Some jackets I get lucky on and there is a ground or nylon string in it that I can pull on to tear the jacket up to where I need it, then just clip it off. But some appliance cords that I work on have quite beefy 20A cables and those can be a bear.
Any hints or words of wisdom on what an inspector would red-flag me on?