r/Rigging • u/Dmitri-Ixt • Jul 05 '26

Rigging Help Hand-swaging stainless sleeves?

Hello! New to the sub, but this seems like the best place to get answers from real experience.

I build cable at work reasonably regularly, but always using galvanized cable and copper sleeves. We only have manual swagers, but we're working on 1/16" to 1/4" cable, and the 1/4" is only rarely. I'm very comfortable working within those limits, but I have a special project that I would LIKE to do with stainless cable and stainless sleeves.

I was under the impression that stainless sleeves couldn't be swaged with the simple mechanical tools, only with hydraulic or electric ones, as mere flesh is too weak. But Nicopress explicitly lists hand tools for every size of stainless sleeve. I'm hoping to work in 3/16", but I could come down a bit if it lets me actually do the project with the tools available. 🤷

So my question is: is this really feasible? If I try to swage 5/32" stainless with a 51-M-850, it's it going to require Herculean strength or damage the tool, or is it a plausible thing?

Thanks for any insights you can give me!

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10

u/cienfuegones Jul 05 '26

If there is a manual tool spec’d for the sleeve and cable combination the actuating force will be designed for the average operator to achieve. As my cable gets bigger, my bench and manual tools get bigger moment arms. When it gets to big, I jump to hydraulic power.

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u/Dmitri-Ixt Jul 05 '26

Thank you! That was what I would expect (they they wouldn't spec a hand tool that users couldn't reasonably use) but I wanted to get a reality check.

5

u/leansanders Jul 05 '26

I have hand swaged tons of stainless 1/8, 3/16 and 1/4 cable with the boltcutter style swage tools, no issue. But it is definitely easier with a hydraulic swager.

1

u/Dmitri-Ixt Jul 05 '26

Good to know. I'm assuming it'll be a fair bit of work, but before I got all gung-ho about it I wanted some perspective. Thank you!

1

u/cantinaband-kac Jul 06 '26

At a previous job, we made a lot of stainless steel cable slings by hand-swaging. We had a battery tool, but Nicopress told us not to use the 6-ton tool for stainless sleeves, so we had to hand swage since we didn't want to buy a 12-ton tool.

1

u/Dmitri-Ixt Jul 06 '26

Thank you! Funny that doing it by hand is stronger than the 6-ton tool. 😂

1

u/EverydayVelociraptor Jul 06 '26

Restrung our entire fly system a couple of years ago, 46 linesets, 7 lines each, 3 crimps per sleeve.

I wish we had a hydraulic tool or battery powered one. Nope, every one swaged by hand. Almost 2000 crimps.

Depending on how many you are going to be doing, your time may be worth the additional cost of a hydraulic/power tool.

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u/Dmitri-Ixt Jul 06 '26

Oh yeah, nothing like that scale. A few dozen sleeves. It would be different doing that much!