Crimper for Spade Lugs

[HarrySmith]

I have been messing with different crimper to attach spades with. I own a few different ones that I have used over the years for cars but they are not correct. I finally broke down and bought the proper pair. I found them on eBay and made an offer of $4.00, it was accepted. With $2.99 shipping it comes to $6.99 total, good price in my opinion. I will see what kind of quality it is when I get it but it states from radio Shack and they usually have decent stuff. You can see it here: http://tinyurl.com/2ah67qr
Also the spades are available on eBay cheaper than our suppliers.

[jsowers]

Harry, I have a pair of crimpers just like those, from Radio Shack, and they're fine for crimping spades for handset and mounting cords for WE phones. It's been a while since I used them, but they seem to do the job fine each time.

I got spades from an eBay seller that are a perfect match for the WE ones, so they look fine. I do leave a little of the tinsel draped over the wire insulation before I crimp, just to make sure I get a good connection. With the wire being the age it is, the penetrating part sometimes looks a little questionable.

[Wallphone]

Harry, That looks like a nice crimper that is about $3 cheaper than you can get at the Radio Shack store.
Here are the piercing terminals that I bought there,
> http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103504&numProdsPerPage=60 <
It doesn't say what tool should be used to crimp these but the tool that you got looks right.
Are you supposed to strip any insulation off of the tinsel wire when you use these terminals?
I assumed that you didn't. I have only used these on four wires and three made contact & one didn't.
What's the deal? Am I doing something wrong? If I am doing something wrong, I did it last year so it doesn't count towards 2011. 

[Phonesrfun]

I have one exactly like that which I got from Odis Levrier before he sold House of Telephones to Old Phone works.  It's the only crimper I use, and it makes flawless crimps every time.  It took a little practice for me to understand just how to do it to get the perfect crimp, but eventually I got it.

OPW sells two sizes of spades, and I buy them in a bag of 100 each because I wind up doing so many.  The large spades are for the fabric and neoprene covered cords such as the thicker line cords and handset cords.  The smaller ones work well when making a half modular cord out of a full modular cord where the wires inside are much smaller than the older line cords.  The smaller ones also work well on the later line cords and handset cords of the later 500's where the wires are much smaller.

Radio Shack may still carry the crimper too.  

I am amazed at how many e-bay sellers try to show off the insides of a phone that have connections done with an automotive crimper and automotive spades.  Yes, they work, but they look awful.

Harry, the price you paid was "priceless"  

Doug, as far as stipping the insulation off the wire, no you don't do that.  The proper spades have a little self-piercing tip inside to pierce the insulation and make contact with the wire when the crimper clamps it to the wire.

Occasionally, I will get one that does not work, and I have to snip it off and re-crimp.  My experience is about one in one hundred, so not very often.  You have to develop the method, and I can post some pictures and a narrative this week-end some time if it would help everyone

Happy crimping.

[Wallphone]

Thanks Bill, looking forward to the tutorial. Do you have the OPW part # of the two sizes that you use?
I wasn't quite sure what Jonathan meant by draping the tinsel.
Radio Shack still has the tool - > http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103683 <
If I got 1 out of 4 bad, then that means the next 96 should be good. Right?

[Dennis Markham]

This is a good thread, thanks for starting it Harry.  I have been using the ones from Radio Shack that Doug mentioned.  Part #64-3070.  I use needle nosed pliers to bend the tabs over but have bared a bit of the wire at the tip to ensure a good contact.  I've not tried piercing the insulation.  I mostly use these for mounting cords.

I would like to get "real" spade tips that more closely match originals and a tool to crimp them on with.  I was thinking about this just the other day as I attached one of these tips.  These are a bit too large and I often snip off each of the tips of the spade tip so they're not so long.

Bill, I too look forward to your step-by-step tutorial on attaching the correct tip.  It's time for an OPW order anyway. 

Thank you!

[Phonesrfun]

Probably the one most important thing to keep in mind when using the crimper and the spades is to point the open tips of the U-shaped shank of the spaes towards the closed end of the crimper recess.  This will close the shank and wrap it around the unsulation of the wire.  for the smaller spades, you will probably need to press the spade shank in the proper crimper recess with your thumb, where it will stay due to it being just the right size to stay in by itself.  then thread the unbared wire through, and hold it in place while you crimp.

Photos are the best way to illustrate all this, but I am at work all day and will probably be working late tonight, but I can take pictures tonight, later on. 

I live in the state of Washington, so I am on Pacific time.

[HarrySmith]

This is great! Most people assume putting a connector on a wire is a no brainer but obviously to do it right is not! I used auto connectors and you are right they look terrible. I also used the terminals Dennis mentioned that are a bit too long, they will actually reach and short out the next terminal. I believe I have the correct piercing lugs now. I also like to fold a tiny bit of the wire under, just to be sure. With these crimpers I should have flawless connections in the future! A step by step pictorial tutorial would be a good addition here.

[Dan/Panther]

Until I finally was able to obtain the proper crimper, I would say 1 out  of 3 of my crimps did not make proper contact.
D/P

[ESalter]

I'd just like to note I have a set of crimpers identical to those that I use at work.  They're made for crimping pins on for small Molex connectors.  Those pins require about 1/16" of the insulation to be stripped off(very, very little, I know).  The WE type spades have a couple small spikes that pierce the insulation when they're crimped, so stripping isn't necessary.  Anyway, these crimpers have a small step in the tooling.  The "smallest" part is for the wire itself and the "bigger" part is made to crimp around the outside of the insulation.  Point being, you might need to crimp each spade twice to get it crimped evenly, otherwise half will be crimped tighter than the other half.  Hopefully that makes sense.  From the photo, it looks like these are the same crimpers, if they aren't and don't have that small step, disregard everything I said

---Eric

[Phonesrfun]

ok, I am not very good at this, so hopefully it will work.  Try this link and see if it is working:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/williamgeurts/sets/72157625773452766/

-Bill

[HarrySmith]

That worked fine, thanks.
Is there more coming? Step by step of stripping, positioning and final crimping with results?

[Wallphone]

Thanks Bill, It looks like you are using the OPW crimp tool which looks different from the Radio Shack tool that Harry bought. What surprises me is that both tools have mostly square pockets. I was thinking that they would be rounded to help roll the tabs down. Looking at the OPW site
(> http://www.oldphoneworks.com/ <) the tool is item #22591, small terminals #21213, and large terminals #21158. Did you get a price break by buying 100 at a time? I like the way they manufacture the terminals. Who'd da thunk it, at first I thought you had "Jack Chain" there.

[Dennis Markham]

Thanks Bill for taking the time to do that.  Those spade tips look just like the ones from Radio Shack, other than they're all held together in the chain.  Radio Shack's are $1.99 for 24 tips.  I didn't look to compare the price but I would imagine buying 100 of them would less expensive.

[ESalter]

Thanks Bill, It looks like you are using the OPW crimp tool which looks different from the Radio Shack tool that Harry bought. What surprises me is that both tools have mostly square pockets. I was thinking that they would be rounded to help roll the tabs down. Looking at the OPW site
(> http://www.oldphoneworks.com/ <) the tool is item #22591, small terminals #21213, and large terminals #21158. Did you get a price break by buying 100 at a time? I like the way they manufacture the terminals. Who'd da thunk it, at first I thought you had "Jack Chain" there.

You're right.  This style crimper is made to crimp uninsulated wire, so it's made to actually curl the edges downward, like a stapler would.  Insulation piercing crimps are made to just be crimped round around the insulation.

---Eric