In article ,
Andy Dingley writes:
On 31 Mar 2006 21:17:20 GMT, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

It's nickel-chromium wire, and the guage of wire will depend
on the model. Often it's in a ribbon profile.

There's some complex reason for the use of ribbon that I can't remember.
Anyone ?

Reasons that spring to mind would be to provide some direction
to the radiated heat and it allows you to adjust the surface
area to cross-sectional area so you can adjust the operating
temperature without relying solely on the length and cross-
sectional area to get the right resistance.

A bootlace ferrule is the right thing to crimp with,

Agreed. It need to be long and give good contact over a decent area. If
it's only small then you get a hot spot and the joint fails again in no
time.

I usually unthread a bit of the element to get an overlap at
the repair site, scrape the oxide off, and then crimp. You
have to make sure the ferrule can't vibrate or sag when the
element expands such that it might touch anything. It's best
to fit it as near as possible to a point where the element
wire is supported. If the fault was caused by cutlery being
inserted (in some cases, I have found half a canteen of
cutlery still inside the toaster), I generally won't repair
it until it's covered by RCD protection.

--
Andrew Gabriel