A Problem Making a Cable

Has anyone tried soldering a fitting on a cable? I attempted it today and can't get the solder to wick into the cable. I think it's stainless and I'm using standard rosin flux, electrical solder and a propane torch. The fitting at the twistgrip end is what's giving me trouble. Maybe the cable is treated with something to prevent corrosion.

google "solder stainless steel" for the information you need. Believe you need a special flux, and probably there's more to it....good luck

Silver soldered my clutch and throttle cable ends with silver solder flux. Cable s.steel, no problems.
Ian

I used to solder stainless at a place I worked and I remember that the flux was a yellowish liquid named Benzine on the bottle. The solder was 95/5 (silver/lead). Rosin is very hit and miss on steel. Another that has good strength is what A/C people call SIL/PHOS ,although it will take a MAP gas torch to get it hot enough.

Most cables are not stainless. They get oxidized or dirty which makes soldering near impossible. You need to use some additional flux beyond what's in the solder. Scraping each individual strand until shiny would help a lot.

Hope you have frayed the cable then pulled the end up, hold cable gently in a vice underneath & up against the end, smack a small drift into the end to splay the cable. Swill in cellelose thinners, fill with flux, blowtorch the end until hot enough to get the solder to melt into it, Do not keep heating unnecessaly. Clean off excess solder with thinners. File off excess cable & solder to blend.

You need Bakers fluid for soldering steel, rosin flux is no good for that.

I agree with Flo and Daveparry.
I've just shortened the outer on a throttle cable which I bought brand new from Norvil and which was holding the sliders open on both carbs.
To do that I had to remove the nipple, cut of the ragged end of the inner and re-solder it further down after shortening the outer.
With a new cable it is a bit easier/safer as the inner wire is cleaner.
It is essential to splay out the strands on the outer side of the nipple before soldering.

I learned a bit about cables when I worked in the logging industry. When you put a ferrule on a cable end you slipped on the ferrule over the cut end then splayed the wires out in a circular pattern. You then bent each end of each wire back 170' back towards the center. Next you dipped the end in muric acid which ate all the contaminants off the wire. Muric acid eats anything that is not steel or glass and it was readily available in hardware stores and even pharmacies. Each wire of a cable is preformed into it's pigtail curly shape and then assembled with the others to form the cable. They are all lubricated too as these individual wires all move when flexing or bending. Cables are considered to be machines by those who build them. The muric acid cleans off the lubricant also. Next molten lead was poured down the ferrule and you had an end that wouldn't come off.

I once had a clutch cable that kept pulling out of it's cyndrical ferrule end that located in the clutch lever so I tried this technique on it and it really held. I had to drill out the back end of the ferrule so it was big enough to contain the bent back ends of the wires but it worked well. I'd tried brazing cable ends too but I found it got too hot and weakened the cable and it would break off at the front of the ferrule. Sometimes you screw up the end by over heating so you have to cut off 1/2" off the outer and inner pieces and start over. Cutting the outer part with a grinding disc prevents crimping the tunnel out of shape which wire cutters will do.

RennieK said:

I learned a bit about cables when I worked in the logging industry. When you put a ferrule on a cable end you slipped on the ferrule over the cut end then splayed the wires out in a circular pattern. You then bent each end of each wire back 170' back towards the center. Next you dipped the end in muric acid which ate all the contaminants off the wire. Muric acid eats anything that is not steel or glass and it was readily available in hardware stores and even pharmacies. Each wire of a cable is preformed into it's pigtail curly shape and then assembled with the others to form the cable. They are all lubricated too as these individual wires all move when flexing or bending. Cables are considered to be machines by those who build them. The muric acid cleans off the lubricant also. Next molten lead was poured down the ferrule and you had an end that wouldn't come off.

I once had a clutch cable that kept pulling out of it's cylindrical ferrule end that located in the clutch lever so I tried this technique on it and it really held. I had to drill out the back end of the ferrule so it was big enough to contain the bent back ends of the wires but it worked well. I'd tried brazing cable ends too but I found it got too hot and weakened the cable and it would break off at the front of the ferrule. Sometimes you screw up the end by over heating so you have to cut off 1/2" off the outer and inner pieces and start over. Cutting the outer part with a grinding disc prevents crimping the tunnel out of shape which wire cutters will do.

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Here in the States we call this acid Muriatic Acid or Hydrochloric Acid - HCl. Commonly used to lower the pH in pools.