What dissolves / removes magnetic wire enamel / coating ?

[Psi]

Chlorine tri-fluoride would also probably remove the coating.  Doesn't mean it's a good idea.

[Dulus]

I'm surprised that so little people suggested fire.

Baptize the damn thing with fire .!   

Most of my comments below are made for "low quantity lab use".
For large amount of work, a hot solder pot with an aggressive flux dip is the key.

Just keep a lighter around.
Most of the coatings can be burnt away with hot iron burnts to a molten bulb of slag and broken off after it cooled.

And even the temperature resistant ones lose their elasticity and become somehow brittle after the beforementioned baptism.
Than you can scrape those away with an almost sharp object.
Oxide layer either can be cleaned mechanically afterwards, or if not too severe, left there for flux to handle.

Also, inside edge of metal tweezers are quite good for scraping the enamel.
Most tweezers edges has just the right sharpness for the job.
Pinch it with your thumb and pull. Turn the wire between pulls and voila....

Cant imagine having a molten solder pot in the lab or bench all the time.
And they take some to heat up.

People who suggested molten bath of lye scare me....

[filssavi]

For mass production of electrical machines (hairpin winding, the wire comes per-insulated) they use either mechanical stripping or laser ablation (in order of both price and performance), you can also use just burn the insulation off (with a lighter) however it does a very poor job of it, leaving residues that still hamper solderability, and also gives off toxic fumes.

Overall I too think that for lab use you should just throw it in the recycling bin and buy some regular stuff.

Edit: I would not go down the chemical path if you don’t know the type of resin used as there are many with very varied composition

[janoc]

Acetone, sulphuric acid (!!) ... uuugh folks ... 

For the people who recommend the so called "solderable" enamel (the one which burns off when heated using soldering iron to about 360-380 degrees C), be aware that polyurethane enamels release toxic fumes (isocyanates) when heated. You will need to do it with a good fume extractor, that is really not something you would want to breathe in.

[BrianHG]

There is an electric tool designed for this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32962954758.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.37253d7bDYoCKp&algo_pvid=76f1cb5f-de66-4cde-8ee4-1fa014f363b6&algo_expid=76f1cb5f-de66-4cde-8ee4-1fa014f363b6-1&btsid=0be3746c15972582249054995e75e9&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

See here: https://youtu.be/bsS_7EEYx1Y?t=1390

[SilverSolder]

This is dissapointing

Eraser cost too much? If you are not sure what I was referring to, marketing clip..

https://youtu.be/KyDjcNE1090

That looks like a cool little device - a kind of inside-out wire brush?

[KL27x]

A solder pot works a treat. The reason it's different than just burning or using an iron and solder blob, you don't dip the wire, you have to swish the end of the wire in the pot to remove all the gunk leftover after melting. You are melting it and cleaning the wires by swishing it through molten solder as the cleaning agent. Esp on thinner wires, this is important cuz you can dissolve those wires before you get them clean, otherwise.

[janoc]

That looks like a cool little device - a kind of inside-out wire brush?

More like a sander.

However, this is unlikely to be useful for the thin wire commonly used in electronics - it would likely destroy the wire.

[Psi]

There's so many different grades of coating.

Some you can burn off the coating simply by soldering it, others you must sand or scrape the coating off.
And all combinations in between.

[StuartA]

"Enameled" magnet wire is not a single entity.  There is a variety of coatings, some are harder to remove than others.  For the solderable versions, it is usually not problem.  For the non-solderable versions, a molten salt bath can be used.  There used to be a commercial version of that.  I am not sure it is still available.

I took a small steel block, bored a 1/2" to 3/4" hole, and used a mixture of NaOH and/or KOH with a little NaNO3. (ratio  4:1).
(Attachment Link)

At about 300° to 325°C the insulation is cleanly removed.  The wire may darken quickly when removed, but is still easily soldered without further treatment.

As a qualified chemist who has spent quite some time on this subject, I think the above synopsis is right on the money. There are now so many different types of "enamel", you usually have to just find out what works. But for the very toughest coating, often used in the past, the molten salts bath works well when you need the throughput.