building basics
the hammer results in a clean, tapered cut. Don’t make
it any more complicated by thinking you need fancy or
expensive cable-cutting tools. Aside from a small bench
vise and the cable vise shown in other pictures, my tools
are shown in photo 1.
For the soft galvanized steel wire, I start with a length of
approximately 4 feet for a 3/32-inch wrap (approximately
3 feet for a 1/16-inch cable, and about 5 feet for an 1/8-
inch wrap). We will work with the 3/32-inch cable in
this session. The first end is the easy one as far as length
goes. Mark the cable 2-1/4 inches from the tapered end,
and fit it to the thimble and then cable vise as shown in
photo 2. As depicted, the loose end should be sticking out
2-1/4 inches from the thimble. Practice with several blank
AN- 100 thimble ends until you get the hang of this.
As a baseline, I made matching
assemblies with the standard “nico”
process. I pulled and documented
all failures.
When you feel confident, you can start adding cable
eye ends, shackles, or whatever your cable assembly
requires. Make sure your cable is tight to the thimble
when clamping in the vise. The cable vise will tend
to snug it up as you clamp. Now clamp the cable vise
in your bench-top vise as a third hand. This greatly
simplifies the process. Try clamping both right-hand
and left-hand, as one will feel more natural as you
wrap. At this point I clamp the small modified vise grips
to the cable about 3/4 inch out from the end of the
thimble; see photo 3. Start wrapping wire as tightly as
you can in the gap between the two pliers. I start at the
left and wrap toward the thimble using a set of needle-nose pliers (with serrations that have been ground off
and all sharp edges ground to prevent nicking the wire)
to pull each wrap as tightly as possible. Remove the
vise grips and continue wrapping the long end of the
wire until you have a wrap approximately 1/2 to 5/8
inch long.
At any time during the wrapping process, I may use
a dulled (no sharp edges) flat screwdriver to push and
work the wire wrappings tightly to each other and to
the thimble. The goal is no gaps between the individual
wires, with the exception of the inspection “windows.”
Photo 4 shows the first section complete and my high-tech finger savers. I wrap several layers of tape around
the areas of the fingers used to pull the wire tight. You
will know why the day after your first couple of wraps.
At this point we need to make a gap of about 3/16 to
1/4 inch as the inspection window previously described;
see photo 5. Continue making the second section of the
wrap, another inspection gap, and then the final wrap
and whip. It will now become apparent why the cable
was cut at a taper. Continue wrapping right out to the
end of the cable. It will taper nicely down the transition
(your angled cut) to the single cable.
I finish with five or six wraps around the single cable. Use
diagonal cutting pliers to cut the wire close to the cable, and
use the needle-nosed pliers to crimp the end down firmly
onto the cable. The entire time I am wrapping I am using
the needle-nosed pliers to hold the area previously wrapped
so that spiraling in the direction of wrap is reduced and to
provide more support for a good, tight wrap. Remove your
assembly from the cable vise and admire it. I usually crimp
the thimble tangs flat to the cable as well, to make a better-looking end product. It’s a whole lot easier than it sounds.
Photo 6 shows the desired result.
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