Stripping cable outers

[jpembroke]

Football with staff cancelled, so went down to LBS minus active front brake (not too far luckily), and guy gave me some cable cutters (Park tools ones, just to please you lot), and said "you know what you're doing", but we ended up having to wrestle the inner about a bit to get it to retract into the casing in order to cut the outer. Did it in the end and now as good as (or better than) new! Thanks for the replies, might still eventually get some cutters.

Oh, I missed this one. So you did manage to cut it with a set of Park cutters then? Thought you'd tried that and failed, thus my compressionless tangent.

 

[Crackle]

I was trying to work out why he couldn't cut through his cables with a standard pair of cable cutters. He said he tried but they wouldn't cut through. When ordering in some cables for a BMX the other day it occurred to me that only type of cable housing that can't easily be cut with standard tools is the compressionless type as used on BMXs etc. Avid Flak Jacket is similar. And no doubt there are others (Nokon?). This stuff is much more tricky to cut than standard brake outer.

In short, I was merely suggesting he had some form of compressionless brake outer on his bike instead of standard steel coil brake outer, which would explain why he couldn't cut through it easily with a pair of cable cutters. It was just a suggestion. I don't think I did a very good job of explaining myself. And having said all that, it is highly unlikely that a bike would come with this as standard.

Kind of wish I hadn't made the suggestion now.

I thought I'd missed something in the thread. I read it twice to make sure I hadn't. Now I understand. I also now know about compressionless cable housings, so it wasn't a waste of time.

Dremels, bah. Big hammer and sharp chisel

 

[jpembroke]

I thought I'd missed something in the thread. I read it twice to make sure I hadn't. Now I understand. I also now know about compressionless cable housings, so it wasn't a waste of time.

Dremels, bah. Big hammer and sharp chisel

Phew. I was starting to worry everyone thought I was some sort of nut job.

Anyway, despite my early excitement and misguided eureka moment it would appear Radius has managed to cut his cable now using a proper set of cutters and that it was just bog-standard outer after all.

I do get a bit carried away sometimes.

(p.s. I think you need a 12" petrol concrete cutter to get through linear BMX cable by the way. Hammer & chisel just ain't up to the job.)

 

[Radius]

J, thanks for replying and don't feel bad, at least I've learnt something new about a different type of cable and how to cut it

 

[jpembroke]

Cool. And you'll know where to come if you ever buy a BMX.

 

[Dave5N]

Do you know stuff about BMX?