Dremel?

[sales guy]

Originally Posted by JWDR

I’ve got a pair of the blue and grey shimano cutters sitting in my tool box but always reach for my felcos when i need to cut cables.

Wanna sell them? If they are the Shimano ones, i'd be interested in them.

[shovelhd]

Originally Posted by merckx

My preference are these SunTours. I purchased them in the mid-80's. Second best are the blu/grey Shimano.

That's what I have, except the handles are red.

[chrismoustache]

There's a pair of the red Suntour cutters on ebay right now. A little pricey, but who doesn't swoon a little for some vintage Suntour tools?

[etu]

Originally Posted by VoyTirando

i discovered a true ah ha! moment in bike maintenance: suddenly my shifts were crisp, my rear brake no longer mushy.

As a home mechanic, I've haven't paid careful attention to the cable housing ends. This sounds like something to try and see if it makes a noticeable difference for me.

[cmbicycles]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

I have a dremel, and I've never done it this way. maybe I should try. My Pedros cutter works fine for me, and i don't think I will wear it out.
Have thought about getting a Knipex though.

I tried a dremel to dress the cut housing afterwards, the cutoff wheel works, as does the drum sander. When I used it for cutting it tended to melt the housing liner at the ends.
I really like the knipex cutters, I use them more than my old felco, and the built in crimper is nice as its the perfect size for housing ferrules. For brake housing I find a good set of diagonal cutters work best to not fold over the housing coil if you cut the direction of the coil, for derailleur housings I go with the Knipex and a file to smooth it out.

[staggerwing]

Originally Posted by marsh

I have an ancient pair of Nashbar cutters that work way better than my newer Park cutters.

FWIW, my Parks work better, like night and day better, after I carefully honed and deburred the cutting slot with ceramic hand stones, applied a drop of chain lube to the pivot, and tightened the pivot bolt just a smidgen (honestly, no more than 10 degrees).

[dddd]

I wondered if marsh had the same style cutters that I bought at Performance nearly 20 years ago. These have green handles, thick blades, have flawlessly cut literally thousands of cables and housings, and still work like new.
It's as fine of a tool as my Shimano chain breaker, with similar service history duration and performance. Truly remarkable tools!

I can't think of a worse way to cut any housing than a Dremel.
The dust contaminates the inside of the housing with exactly the sort of detritus that degrades housings under CX conditions.
Many cable housings today come pre-lubricated with the choicest silicon/ptfe lubricant of the sort that will never dry, thicken or permeate away from the working surfaces through the liner, so the last thing you would want is for this to be contaminated or flushed away.

Virtually all shift housing ferrules (even the metal ones, sealed or otherwise) have a polymer surface inside which is specifically designed to allow the right degree of penetration/embedding of the ends of shear-cut wires, so that with a normal post-install cable pre-stressing, the alignment of the housing end, the distribution of compressive force among the wires, and the robustness of final adjustment are assured.

Brake cable housings are different and are sensitive to cutting technique using normal cutters, so I routinely rotate the already-cut end to a precise position to enable the cutters to bite the very end of the coil a second time so as to flatten the end of the housing and with the liner unobstructed. I don't find it necessary or even useful to cut either kind of housing to any higher standards than these.

One special step that I do include is to flex the ends of each housing in all directions where it enters a ferrule, while applying the modest pre-stress tension to the cable. I feel that this best simulates the real-world stresses each housing might endure, so my final adjustment that follows this step is a more-robust adjustment that suffers less loss of adjustment in use.

[Louis]

Originally Posted by dddd

I can't think of a worse way to cut any housing than a Dremel.

And I can't think of a better way.

I've been using cut-off wheels to do this for years, and haven't had any issues with dust or other contaminants and have gotten thousands of miles of great service from Dremel-cut brake and shift housing.

YMMV

[dddd]

Originally Posted by Louis

And I can't think of a better way.

I've been using cut-off wheels to do this for years, and haven't had any issues with dust or other contaminants and have gotten thousands of miles of great service from Dremel-cut brake and shift housing.

YMMV

But why contaminate your shop, your housing, your eyes and your breathing air with dust and shards from a cutoff wheel?

I'm sure that the OP will be more efficient, clean and happy with a good cable cutter.

They are cheap enough, and as with the spoke tensiometer that I bought all those years ago, money really well spent (I'm understating this).

Put another way, if an employee of mine one day started cutting housings with a Dremel tool, I would almost definitively conclude that they had just been smoking pot.

[Corso]

Another Dremel user here. I find the thin-non-reinforced cutting wheels work just fine for cables.

I wrap the housing tight with masking tape before I make the cut-keeps the outer housing from fraying or distorting from the heat.

I always blow air from the opposite end - to clean out the housing.

[cmbicycles]

Originally Posted by dddd

But why contaminate your shop, your housing, your eyes and your breathing air with dust and shards from a cutoff wheel?

I'm sure that the OP will be more efficient, clean and happy with a good cable cutter.

They are cheap enough, and as with the spoke tensiometer that I bought all those years ago, money really well spent (I'm understating this).

Put another way, if an employee of mine one day started cutting housings with a Dremel tool, I would almost definitively conclude that they had just been smoking pot.

When I worked at an equipment dealer we cut hydraulic hose on a chop saw with a metal cutoff disc. Made a nice burning rubber smell.

[xjoex]

I have a few dremels and use them for so many things. Do yourself a favor and buy the adjustable chuck :


It is just a few bucks on amazon and so worth it. I also grab my cordless dremel stylus more than the top of the line plugin one I bought.

As an aside I use the knipex cutters for cable: