crimping without a crimper

[pyromallat]

Hello there
So i want to put a mono line on my new gun with crimps but i looked.at a lot of fishing and hardware stores and i cant find any crimpers ... and i read that normal pliers and side cutters dont have the power to secure a crimp properly so i was wondering would a manual press or. Hydrolic press will do the job? The manual press is a rotating screw type of press... its rly powerful and it will even bend thick steel water pipes... so will it work?

 

[Pinniped72]

Have you tried car repair shops and electrical repair/electronic shops, these trades use crimpers on a daily basis, its worth a shot

 

[Mr. X]

You don't need a fancy tool, crimps are very soft, you can use pliers. I use a very cheap, simple electrical crimper, which I bought 30 years ago, they are still available all over the place for about £3 or £4; the advantage of this tool is that it is "bi-cusped", e.g. it leaves a sort of round-ish hole when closed - not essential but helpful.

Mushroom (melt) the end of your spearline, to stop it pulling through. "Belt & bracers" security: Superglue the whole thing when done.

 

[pyromallat]

You don't need a fancy tool, crimps are very soft, you can use pliers. I use a very cheap, simple electrical crimper, which I bought 30 years ago, they are still available all over the place for about £3 or £4; the advantage of this tool is that it is "bi-cusped", e.g. it leaves a sort of round-ish hole when closed - not essential but helpful.

Mushroom (melt) the end of your spearline, to stop it pulling through. "Belt & bracers" security: Superglue the whole thing when done.

thank u a lot for the help... u just made my life a lot easier

 

[Mr. X]

Glad to be of help

 

[Bill McIntyre]

I have to disagree with Mr. X. Get a real crimper with jaws perfectly sized for your crimps. And get crimps perfectly sized for your mono. Melting the end of the mono is good. When you shoot the fish of a lifetime, you'll be glad you have proper crimps.

http://www.neptonicsystems.com/crimper.php

Leave a little flare at the ends of the crimp so that it doesn't cut into the mono.

 

[Mr. X]

Excellent, you now have both sides to the story to consider: proper/pro-tool vs. cheap & cheerful - we aim to cover all the bases

That one looks very nice & good value Bill but prices for crimpers in the UK that I have seen sold for this purpose are typical 2x to 4x the price of that one (& shipping + import duty here would bump the price of that one up significantly ) and really are unnecessary for the soft aluminium crimps, monofilamet lines & fish here in the UK (no 100lb white bass here unfortunately). The crimps used here are comparable in thickness to the wall of a modern Coke can, perhaps a tad thicker.

BTW Bill what sort of crimps do you use (aluminium/steel/brass) - do they require such a heavy duty tool or is there some other benefit?

I was surprised at how easy the crimps that we use are to crimp - as I actually used whipping cord initially instead of crimps. I've used 3 or 4 different brands/sources of crimps and found my old electrical crimper perfectly fine for the job. I think Foxfish just used snipe nose pliers at one time. I was glad I didn't splash out £30-£48 unnecessarily. Also my crimper tool is small, slim, light & cheap, so I take them with me in my dive box. I am not claiming it is in any way wonderful just that it is more than adequate. Mine look like this but with yellow handles:
Just £1.88 including free shipping from ebay now - about half the price I paid 35 years ago in Halfords!

If you opt for a more expensive tool, you might want consider stainless steel if it is likely to get salty (e.g. on a boat).

 

[foxfish]

Yes I did at one time use round pliers to crimp the middle but that was before the double crimp design was readily available.
I now use a basic crimping tool bought from a local electrical goods store, cost around £20.
The important things to get right (as bill points out) is to flare the ends & blob the nylon.
MrX, I agree we don't need to pay as much attention to perfect crimping in the UK but as I now use quite thin mono I do try a lot harder than I used to.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

We are fortunate to have larger fish, so this makes us more sensitive to details such as crimps. In the last week we've had a rare run of bluefin tuna north of the Mexican border and one of my friends shot a 242 pounder. I believe at least two over 300 pounds were shot. I doubt that I'll have a shot at one of those before Trump builds his wall, but hope springs eternal, and I want to be ready.

The crimps most commonly used here are copper and aluminum. I usually use copper. The crimps in the Neptonics ad are copper, and you can get a decent idea of the thickness in that photo. I just tried to take a photo of an aluminum crimp and a copper crimp, but the Neptonics photo is better.

I should confess that I carry a crimper like the Neptonics in a tackle box on my boat just in case I'm forced to rerig at sea, but the one I actually use at home is much bigger. It has tremendous mechanical advantage so that I hardly feel any resistance when squeezing the crimp, and the jaws are wide enough so that one squeeze in the center leaves a perfect flare at each end. With the smaller crimpers like the one in my tackle box, the jaw are narrow so that you have to move them down the length of the crimp and squeeze twice.

I consider the larger crimper to be essential for crimping stainless steel cable, but it costs over $100 and is too big to take on my boat.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

This photo gives a better idea of size. Another choice used by professionals is a bench crimper that accepts different sized dies for different crimps., but that is really expensive.

 

[Mr. X]

That'd be completely OTT for our crimps Bill, very little force is required. Such huge mechanical advantage would be absurdly excessive - like cutting your toes nails with bolt-croppers. However, accurate size & shape might help, as long as the chosen tool has the right size & shape for the line & crimps used.

That said, I was impressed by quality of Rob Allen crimps. They use(d) a professional bench-mounted crimper.

Hi Foxfish, the crimpers I use work well with double barrel crimps - that's all I use.
Crimping double barrel crimps:

Ref. http://leadertec.com/tipsandtechniques/crimp_techniques.html

 

[saltysunburns]

My 2 cents on crimpers are to inspect the crimping jaws on the crimper you decide to purchase, the cheaper chinese tools have sloppy tolerances and will affect the quality of your crimps...look for uniformity in the crimp jaws and that they are aligned properly and have smooth edges. I have never seen one of my crimps pull out, as long as you crimped correctly with sufficient force the mono should fail before the crimp lets the line slip through; but if a melted blob of mono and superglue gives you extra peace of mind then go for it. I also use copper crimps with steel cable in industrial applications, and have seen steel cable break from catching on hydraulic rams and the crimps were still holding. Another thing when crimping your shooting line is to pay attention to what side your line is going to be strung so you dont end up with a twist in your line once you load your gun.

 

[Kodama]

That said, I was impressed by quality of Rob Allen crimps. They use(d) a professional bench-mounted crimper.

Would love to see a picture of the benchmounted crimper. It would be nice to make such a tool for my shop.



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[Bill McIntyre]

Would love to see a picture of the benchmounted crimper. It would be nice to make such a tool for my shop.



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Here's an example of one. They are very expensive, and then you have to buy dies for each line size.
http://www.meltontackle.com/products/momoi-bench-mount-crimp-tool.html

 

[Bill McIntyre]

More examples.

https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=bench+crimper&tag=deeperbcom-20

 

[Mr. X]

More examples.
https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=bench+crimper&tag=deeperbcom-20

You have many cool options in the USA. I just put the same search into Amazon.co.uk and it was not quite so impressive.
Completely underwhelming in fact. Not one single suitable product

 

[Bill McIntyre]

You have many cool options in the USA. I just put the same search into Amazon.co.uk and it was not quite so impressive.
Completely underwhelming in fact. Not one single suitable product

I think it's probably a function of the big game fishing that we have. Rigging is very important when you're catching marlin and tuna.

 

[Mr. X]

Yes, we only have small game fishing now . At Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire I saw photos in cafe of huge blue fin tuna that used to be caught off Scarborough. Supposedly American tycoons would bring their yachts to go big game fishing there. The fish were much bigger than a man, I think the biggest was 900lb+ No more though, commercial fishermen erradicated their food source, herring and sardines/pilchards (much as is happening now with anchovies, sandeels & mackerel)

 

[Iris Reid]

Hello there
So i want to put a mono line on my new gun with crimps but i looked.at a lot of fishing and hardware stores and i cant find any crimpers ... and i read that normal pliers and side cutters dont have the power to secure a crimp properly so i was wondering would a manual press or. Hydrolic press will do the job? The manual press is a rotating screw type of press... its rly powerful and it will even bend thick steel water pipes... so will it work?

I think you buy crimper from online stores like Amazon, eBay, etc. These stores provide you all types of crimper like bench crimper, bench swage, hardware wire crimper, etc.

 

[vrokhlenko]

I have those: https://ru.aliexpress.com/item/WXS-...108.1000016.1.4d216353fPi2QY&isOrigTitle=true
Serves my needs perfectly. The price above includes free shipping all over the world. I suggest two crimps per sleeve and two sleeves per loop. Extremely important is to melt the end and create a little blob to prevent slippage.
Go with the copper double barrel crimps that are 0.1mm larger than your mono. Do not use oval aluminum ones
Here is the ebay search for example:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=double+barrel+crimps&_sop=15

Cheers!