In article ,
(ant) wrote:

what is the right tool/swage for this type of joint?

I use part of a cheap cable TV coax crimping tool to "squish flat"
appropriate sized copper or aluminum crimps on 1/16th vinyl coated steel
cables, but nobody's life depends on them. No being a climber, I'm not
sure to what extent that is the case for these objects. Other coax crimp
tools might give a "nicer" appearance (most crimp a hex form on the
thing they are sized to crimp, but only squeeze from two sides to do
so). I'm using an el-cheapo where both of the hexes are much too large
for what I'm doing, but the flat in between does what I need. I'm not at
all sure that a less-squished-looking crimp is a better crimp, but you
can work up a crimp method and test a bunch of cables to destruction to
see if your method works well enough.

The basics of a hand crimper are a hole which is somewhat smaller than
the crimp, and a lot of pressure. Clamp two chunks of steel together,
drill a hole on the join line, unclamp, chuck in a vise with the crimp
made up, clamp the vise, see what you get. If the thing has "ears", the
hole is too small. If the cable pulls out, the hole is too big.

Hand crimpers go faster by giving you a boatload of leverage so you can
squeeze the crimp with your hand, and they keep the crimp dies lined up
so you don't have to fiddle with them - a vise should do the job, if
somewhat slower. A press would do it.

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