MacGregorSailors.com

Handy type people....I'm redoing standing rigging on my harpoon fleet and have finally realized I need a swage tool at home

Any recommendations for a source?

Harbor freight doesn't seem to have a cheapie......

Right now it looks like about a 90 USD outlay ...a bit too much to not justifying driving to WM and using theirs....

I think that BWY has an inexpensive one.



~Rich

Get one of these....



... you will like it, especially if you are doing more than 1 or 2 crimps. I looked at the other one and it just looked too slow and a pain to use. Don't forget you have to crimp each swage 3 times.

Here is a link on Amazon to one like we bought.....

http://www.amazon.com/Tie-Down-43005-Ha ... B000CSNJAI

We searched around and found a place that at the time had them for about $55 if I remember right, but I haven't seen them that cheap since. They will I believe also crimp more sizes than the other one 1/16 to 3/16. I used the 5/32 for what I did, but on a Mac if you wanted to stay with the stock forestay and shroud sizes you would use the 1/8 and 5/32 and it will do both of those. I might get some 1/16 swage ferrules and make up some 1/16 wire as tethers for things I don't want to drop overboard like the pins for the anchor bow rollers.

The nice thing is that when you do the crimp you just pull the handles all the way together and they go over-center and create the crimp. Perfect every time and you are done in no time. You get a go-no-go gauge with it to check, but I never had to redo one. We carry in on the boat with wire and swages just in case we ever need it on a trip.



If you didn't see it before here is the page to where I made up new rigging...

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... ng-24.html

Sum

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

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I have used the BWY swage tool when I put on my stern seats. It did seem to work well but like Sumner said it is time consuming. I believe I am going to spring for the tool that Sum used so that I can change my rigging. I will keep the BWY tool on boat for emergency repairs. As I do not have all those cabinets and storage places made for my boat yet.
Mike.............. already waiting for spring.

Thanks Sum, Rich, Mike

I'll go for the full tool....although the compactness of that other tool looks cool for onboard...

Sum, thanks for not posting Ruth's sunbrella swage toolkit bag.....

changed my mind and went wiith the compact tool from Defender

Rationale - 1/3 the price and also fits into the onboard toolbox.

Interesting thread.

How often would you expect to use a tool like this?
Emergencies?

I suppose some extra cable would also be a good thing to keep for spares.

Exactly, Russ. If Im doing a rigging project, I go to WM and use their tool. Actually the rigging guy there will do them for me. At sailing school, or on the Cape, if I have a problem, I wont be carrying the bolt cutter type with me, whereas the small swage tool fits right into my toolbox. I do carry thimbles and swages too.

I also ordered the compact model from defender for my winter rigging replacement project. Turns out the crimper tool at my job only does 1/8 3/16 1/4 (although we do have a hydraulic rotary crimper along with a cable tester) so I decided to get something I could keep in the toolbox like Catigale said. I have a lot of time to do this so that is not an issue for me. My only concern is that the 5/32" wire is very difficult to wrap around the thimbles! Is it possible to get it around without it bird caging?

Well, the Defender tool is 1/2 the price of the jaws of life, and it takes about 1 minute to do a swage, instead of 5 seconds....and it fits the toolbox a lot better on board...
Today, the garage door wire broke, and with 3 USD of galvanised 3/32 inch, a swage and a stop lug, I had it back together in 30 minutes of an alotted 2 hour honey-do.....

If I ever felt the need to carry a swedge tool, I bet I could make those handles so they telescoped or even used some other pipe already on the boat for something else like the table support pipe.
Ixneigh
Instead I have an extra headstay already made up. Might add an upper and a lower.

You could carry the longer of the two, swaged on one end only. Then extra thimbles and swages with the tool in that nice little container with a 13mm wrench with it tool.

In a pinch you could also drop and sacrifice the backstay for a shroud or forestay too. I cut my garage door swage off successfully with a dremel tool btw. Wear safety glasses !

Catigale wrote:I cut my garage door swage off successfully with a dremel tool btw. Wear safety glasses !

A Dremel tool is the bomb for small wire rope work. I leave some extra when forming the eye over a thimble, to make it easier to work, crimp the first nicropress sleeve, then cut off the excess with the Dremel tool using a thin piece of metal to protect the rope from accidents with the cutting wheel. Then I crimp the second sleeve such that as it expands lengthwise, it just meets the end of the wire rope. No little stabby bits of wire that way.

But yes, the Dremel is the only way to fly for this kind of work.

Cat,

I have one similar to the pic posted by Hamin'X. (very slow, but works well). I've had it for years.

A friend of mine told mine that Lowe's has one (the one that looks like bolt cutters) for thirty, or so, bucks He got one and says it's great. Haven't been down to look at one myself, but plan to.

Best Breezes,
Steve K.

Steve K wrote:A friend of mine told mine that Lowe's has one (the one that looks like bolt cutters) for thirty, or so, bucks He got one and says it's great. Haven't been down to look at one myself, but plan to.

That's the one I bought a few years ago, at Lowes. It has dies for 1/16, 3/32, 1/8, and 3/16" wire. It was relatively cheap (I think I paid less then $30), but works great.

It won't do the 5/32" wire rope used for shrouds (so I bought them from BWY), but I've made my own 1/8" backstay, and numerous lanyards and tethers for various quickpins and such out of 1/16". That's in addition to stuff around the house, of course, as well as our local high school's robotics team, which has discovered the joys of light-weight tension members.

It was money well-spent, in my opinion.