i started soldering and shrink tubing every thing a few years ago.no more bad splices or tape falling off
In this poverty-stricken dead-beat county where I grew up, EVERYONE just had a pocket-knife and some old sun-bleached black-tape as their entire electrical kit.
Fold the wire across the knife-blade and give it a jerk to cut it.
Whittle away the insulation just like one would whittle a point on a stick.
Twist the two wires together into a pointy shape, no matter if one is a 24AWG and the other a 2/0.
Now, start wrapping on the black tape, around and around, axle-grease all over the roll, plus remnants of that SKI that got spilled in the console, wrapping and stretching.
Now for the good part, once sufficient tape has been stretched and wadded around the splice, they hold the splice steady with one hand and SSSSTTTTTRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHH the tape until it finally snaps in two.
When I was growing up, and on into the early 1980s, there were two licensed electricians that the local RECC would sign off on to get your electric turned on.
Electric was some form of black magic; why, some guy off-barring at the saw-mill made the mistake of touching the rollers and it knocked off his boots and welded his zipper, killing him grave-yard dead.
Then, over at the packing-house, a guy wearing a long white shop-coat and black rubber boots, standing in six-inches of blood and bleach-water, was "lectrokuted" when an old three-**** Holstein come back to life with her throat cut and smashed the hook-rail into the 3-phase cable running along the wall; he died with his rubber boots on.
That stuff's dangerous and could get you
killed; we better not mess with it.
So, we always called on one or the other of those two licensed electricians.
I kid you not, their only tools were a pocket-knife --- the same one they peeled apples with and castrated boar pigs ---, more than one roll of black-tape and maybe cleaner/fresher than the average bears, a claw-hammer for knocking out knock-outs, and a long straight-blade screw-driver that they used as a cold-chisel to tighten the toothed rings on the Romex connecters, to drive the screws that held the loops of wire onto the outlets and switches, to poke and pry and punch, and a thousand other purposes.
When those push-in (back-stabber) outlets/switches were introduced, they didn't need the screw-driver quite so often, so often they had to hunt for where they used it last when a job for it came up.
These guys completely installed the service in a filling station, the huge tire-shop that we still run, no less than five houses and several mobile-homes, and countless big barns, all for my father.
Neither of them ever owned a stripper, they just used their knife.
And, to cut the heavier wire, they used that cutting notch at the rear of the pliers.
Needless to say, I didn't have any good examples or better-knowing mentors to teach me any different.
I didn't even know that there was a better way.
I had a string of cattle-trailers and several trucks and the general rule was to have just a scattered light here and there that was lit.
Then, suitcase conectors came along; why they must have been good cause even Gooseneck used handfuls of them on their trailers.
These suitcase connectors brought about a new situation.
You would be cruising along with everything all lit up and then look down the side of the trailer and the last five or so lights on that side would not be burning.
Then, directly, they would be back on and maybe another few on the other side would be out.
We learned to reach under and give the wires a shake at every stop and most of the lights would stay lit.
Then, while building a railroad empire in the son's bedroom, I discovered soldering-irons and heat-shrink.
I thought "Hey; why can't I use this technology on my trailer wiring ??"
Now, I would put my wiring skills against anyones.
I am extremely obsessive/compulsive about my wiring and very proud in the fact that a trailer can sit back in the black-berry vines and honey-suckle for five years and, when I lift the lid on the receptacle and shove that 6-prong plug home, every single bulb lights, every signal flashes, the big flood-lights and spot-lights all shine brightly, the interior lights light the insides of the long trailer like a stock-yards at night; and, I can drag those trailers a thousand miles through rain, snow, ice, across old iron bridges, home-made box-culverts, and rail-road tracks, with big cows trying their best to wreck the trailer, and when I roll back in home, nary a bulb has had to be messed with.
That makes me proud to be an American.
The old fart industrial electrician I learned from had even less, a screwdriver. That was it. I honestly saw him strip wires with his teeth before. Good thing no one turned on that 277 volt lighting circuit. 
