Spade Connectors, crimpimg tool.

[Dan/Panther]

What is the tool of choice for crimping spade connectors, I use the regular plier method, but it doesn't look as good as the pros. My crimps  are round, but a little scuffed up.
D/P

[McHeath]

Like a Real Man™, I use my teeth.

The ones I have left that is.

[Dan/Panther]

You mean you use your tooth.....

D/P

[Bill]

You can buy a crimp tool for about $7 from Ace Hardware, Radio Shack, Lowes, Home Depot, etc. They seem to make flat crimps, and at least on automotive stuff, the crimp is often easy to pull out. You can pay quite a bit more for a crimp tool that makes indented crimps. Take a look at any of the crimped connectors in your car to see what I mean.

Part of it depends on the nature of the spade lugs you are using. If the inside of the shank is simply a smooth tube, you need to strip the wire first. If the shank has a couple teeth inside it, then a proper crimp will push the teeth through the insulation of the wire, making for a stronger and better-looking connection, and one that won't break so quickly under flexing.

Bill

[Dan/Panther]

I have a regular Sta-Kon crimper, but it won't crimp the small spade connectors used in phone service.
Here we go again, guess I'll have to make one.

D/P

[benhutcherson]

I use a pair of needle-nosed pliers to crimp the small insulation-piercing spade lugs. I do one "finger" at a time, and generally end up with a nice looking crimp.

Sure it's slow, but functional.

[Dan/Panther]

Ben;
That's kind of what I do, but the connector gets all scratched up, I know it really is not that bad a deal, but I would like to have connections that can't be seen from the originals, how do you keep the uneven, and stratched look away ?
D/P

[HobieSport]

To avoid scratches would it help to pad the pliers with a little electrical tape?

[Dan/Panther]

O.K. this is what I came up with, and I'm very happy with the results.

The first photo is of the needle nose pliers I had in my tool box, that the tongs were not closing flat face to face. I decided these were to become my next victim.
I then measured a crimped fitting with normal phone wire installed. This was so I would be sure to get exactly the same volume of compression, and not too little or to overcrimped.
It came out to about .085 thousanth of an inch. I got my drill bits out, and selected a couple, along with a big can of cutting fluid, I use Rapid tap, or tap magic, it cuts surface tension and allows easier drilling into hard material, of which these pliers are very hard.
After sharpening both drill bits about 5 times each, and a half can of rapid tap, I finally got the hole drilled. I then cut the tongs down on the pliers to make them more useful for working with small connectors. I deburred the pliers, then cleaned them up on the wire wheel. Second photo is the finished pliers.
Third photo is a side by side comparison, of the new crimp( Red), vs. my old style pliers crimp (White).
Works for me.
When crimpimg, the open uncrimped end of the spade connector faces the crotch of the pliers. Otherwise they may have a tendancy to walk out into the open jaws, and not crimp properly.

D/P

[Dan/Panther]

One more item, this will only work on whichever size connector you make it for, you will have to have a different hole size for smaller or larger spade connectors.
I think I bought mine from Oldphoneworks.
D/P

[gpo706]

Don't know about your side of the pond, but here in UK you can buy yourself a brand new crimping/cutter tool with all sizes of crimps catered for from my local Radio shack equivalent.

Very useful when I had to trim off a damaged line cord and recrimp the lugs (the ones with the teeth).

[Dan/Panther]

gpo706;
On this side of the pond, we are cheap, I try to make it if I can, it uses things up that were before useless, and it's a challenge.
Nothing more rewarding to me than to make the tools I need to make, or repair things. If that makes any sense ?
D/P

[gpo706]

I've nowt against cheap, its my middle name.

I can strip electric cable with my teeth but draw the line a trying to crimp lugs with them!

[HobieSport]

I've nowt against cheap, its my middle name.

I can strip electric cable with my teeth but draw the line a trying to crimp lugs with them!

I still can't tell if the accent is Australian or Scottish or Northern England.

I'm guessing Australian because you strip wire with your teeth.

I'm usually inaccurate.

[gpo706]

Scottish, dude!

just need to like translate some words for you dudes over the pond (dumpster etc).

Anyway maybe US domestic cables are differnet size to UK, after all here its 240V so maybe the wire is thinner!