[sdiy] newbie questions: ribbon cables

[juju selwyn]

(advance apologies for cross-posting in all relevant forums I subscribe to)

Could anyone offer some advice on working cleanly with ribbon cables? The
last hitch in my current project (see below) is an essential existing ribbon
cable that connects one PCB to another. It's much too short to incorporate
into the design. Given that this isn't a $3 thrift toy, the cable goes into
the main PCB very close to some essential IC's, and I don't have a lot of
existing cable to work with, I'd like to do as clean and minimal of a job as
possible. I'm trying to find out as much as I can, and I'll probably hack up
some old IDE cables later today for practice. What kind of tool should I use
to strip the ribbon?

The project is a new housing and modifications to an Alesis SR16 drum
machine. I have an additional one with a fried power section to cannibalize,
but it's been pretty unnecessary. However, this one connects the ribbon
cable using a socket on the bottom board and a chip-like interface at the
end of the cable - I haven't been able to test it yet, but in theory the top
part of the assembly of the dead one should still work, so I'm considering
using that. The functional unit has a fixed interface of some kind. I've
made a crappy scan of it that you can find at the URL below:

http://www.misterkargill.com/sr16ribbon.jpg

Note that the cable has some kind of shielding. Although they are
essentially the same in design and both marked Revision F, the functional,
the functional unit was manufactured about five years after the
non-functioning unit with the socket design. My guess is that this change
was made for both cost efficiency and reduction of RF - I've heard of
socket-based designs causing problems because of the later. SO, if I'm able
to extend the length of this cable (hopefully by about, say, 8-10") I'm
guessing that I will need to extend the shielding somehow as well.

If you were able to bear with me here and have anything to contribute, I
offer my most sincere thanks in advance.
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