Cable making

[groily]

Again, due to too much time on my hands, I've been playing to make little toys for cable making. I am grateful to a good mate in the Rudge Owners for describing the idea, (which is probably well-known to some folk here). There may even be commercial versions avaialble, haven't looked.
But, the creation of a mini-bird's-nest of the wire strands to fit the chamfered side of cable nipples is a very good thing I reckon, as when it is filled with solder you get a totally unburstable cable.
A simple tool that can be made in various sizes - using a split length of steel, with a groove cut up the middle longways, a belled area one end, and a matching bell-ended punch with a shallow hole up the middle to take the bare end of the cable which the punch bears on.
Put split clamp in vice with cable clamped in it, put punchy end over the cable, whack it . . . and this is what you get (see pic). Brilliant for clutch and brake cables, which is what I've been making so far. As smaller version for throttles and ignition cables sits in the same box of kit.

Anyone else who's bored half to death might find it useful therapy to do similar!

[Butch (cb)]

Nice one. They are commercially available, but are horrible money to buy.

[Rex]

Yes, I saw one from (I think) Venhill at something like £180 recently. Looked very effective, but at that price I'll just keep on with a centre-pop to open up the strands in the nipple recess.

[berger]

I just separate the wire strands once through the nipple and solder, then trim up , never had one let go. had a couple of new ones , made in ????? with a union jack picture present pull out

[muskrat]

G'day Fellas.
I cut a 1/8" long piece of the head of a bullet head tack and push it into the frayed end then solder. Never in 50 years have had one let go.
Cheers

[BSA_54A10]

Never had a cable pull through either
However what is more important is to make he drum free floating on the drum by soldering the cable into a pear
Cables usually fail because they can not rotate as you pull them tighter.

AS for £ 180- being expensive, that would be a bit less than an ambulance trip to a hospital or a weeks worth of your other half 's taxi fares to see you.
Let alone your excess when you slam into that RR and stove in two doors & £ 6,000 a piece + fitting & painting.
OR replacing the helmet that prevented you dirtying up 50 yards of road with little bits of your ear / chin / nose etc.

I have been making my own cables ever since Omodies closed down in the late 90's.
Not because I am too cheap to buy premade cables but because none of the cables go any where near fitting properly & Omodies used to keep cables in 2" incriments so it was easy to get a good fit.

[Rex]

I don't get the logic of that. So unless you have a £180 cable tool your bike is unsafe to ride?

[berger]

the man has it, be able to rotate, my old man drilled that into me when he showed me how to do them .

[Slymo]

I generally just crush the tail end with a pair of side cutters before soldering but this is a far more elegant solution! Nice work.

[BSA_54A10]

I don't get the logic of that. So unless you have a £180 cable tool your bike is unsafe to ride?

No just a comparison of costs .
£ 180 sounds like a lot of money but it is cheap insurance that one hopes one will never need .
And FWIW they are £ 118 in the UK or $ 94 in VAT exempt places https://www.venhill.co.uk/tools/all-tools/cable-inner-wire-bird-caging-tool-vt13.html
The landlord bought the whole cable making kit which included the birdcage punch & die and I have to admit that it is excellent and is well worth the money.
I use his regularly and love it , along with the parrot beaked wire cutters it makes the whole process so quick & easy it is not funny.

[RDfella]

Like Slymo, I use sidecutters to open the end of the cable into a vee, and then drive the nipple back to near the end. As long as the solder gets inside the vee, it’ll never come apart. After all, a wedge is the method used on crane cable. I’ve had bikes for almost 60 yrs and currently have seven. But how many times have I needed to solder a nipple (I always make my own cables). Not enough to spend that sort of money for sure, especially when I can do the job just as well (and probably more quickly) with tools I have.

[Rex]

No just a comparison of costs .

A comparison of possible costs maybe. Like RDFella above (and many others)  I've been making my own for years and also never had one fail (touch wood!)
Expensive tools are no guarantee of anything, and if was really worried about such risks I wouldn't go near any motorbike, old or brand new.

[groily]

Thanks for that link to the video '54A10. Hadn't seen that before, although I must have been on the Venhill site often enough.
Quite pricey for what it is, I agree, but a nicely finished item by the looks of. More ££ than a brand new, UK-made, rear brake drum / sprocket I just fitted to one of my AMC twins - so I think I'll stick with my 50 cents version.
Not that I've ever had much trouble with doing cables the 'normal' way either - but when confined to barracks one looks for stuff to pass the time and that idea appealed to me.
And a big Yes to the  parrot beak cutters - saves wear and tear on standard side cutters when doing heavier cables. Another of those things you wonder how you ever did without, once you've got.

21st day of confinement here in France today  . . . One thing about living in the sticks is I can take a bike out to go and get bread etc when needed, without abusing the rules, so things could be worse. Could be a darn sight better, though. I hope everyone on here is muddling through.

[Rex]

As an aside, is the Moto Retro Luc sur Mer cancelled this year Groily?

[groily]

Not yet Rex . . .but not hopeful to be honest. Revised club website will keep folk up to date we hope. No club activities this past month though. Boring.....