How to remove enamel from wire?

Common ways of removing the insulation on enameled wire include:

• Scraping the enamel carefully off with a sharp knife or blade, while trying not to nick the underlying metal wire
• Melting the enamel off with a hot soldering iron in a quick motion so as not to cause a blob of carbonized enamel to stick to the wire
• Sanding the enamel off with either fine sandpaper, or a polishing / sanding head on a Dremel-type rotary drill
• Using a lit matchstick or a cigarette lighter to melt off the enamel, if the wire is thick enough to not get damaged in the process. Really thin "magnet wires" tend to clump up with such treatment
• Not removing the enamel at all, just connecting through it to the metal wire, using either solder + flux + soldering iron, or a "vampire crimp" or "Insulation Displacement Connector" (IDC) type approach.

If you are only doing this for a few wires (assuming USB or PS/2, that's only four to 6), just scrape it off with a knife, or use some sand paper (or even an emery nail board).

Get a pill of aspirine. Put your enameled wire on its surface and press it down with a soldering iron's tip heated by operational temperature. Aspirin melts, boils, gets in contact with enamel and desintegrates its coating on wire's copper. So you can strip it with the same soldering iron's tinned tip pretty easily in a couple of seconds (up to 10 sec in fact). Then let it cool down for a several seconds and remove the brittle (like a colophony) melted aspirine's rests away from naked and tinned enameled wire's tip... Do not breath in the aspirine smoke.