Kevin,

I would disagree with the statement that crimped lines for 1/2A are not good. For .008 stranded steel lines this works just fine. But, you need to scale down everything to appropriate sizes.

First, you must have properly sized crimp sleeves. I purchased some tiny sleeves from Melvin over at MBS. If you can just fit three passes of the wire thru the sleeve you have an ideal size. Trying to use sleeves with a lot of clearance is not good.

Next, you absolutely should use round jaw pliers. Anything else is just asking for trouble. And, when crimping, use less force than if you were mashing copper pipe onto a tugboat hawser for some piped .60 job.....   If you don't feel confident that you have the right amount, just make up samples on the ends and test-pull.

I wrap pretty much all of my stranded lines--but not the tiny .008's.  Too much work to do properly (using 36AWG copper) and not necessary.....

Dave

Are these the pliers to use? Hope so because they're the ones I ordered.https://www.lowes.ca/product/cutting-pliers/innovak-fuller-pro-mini-round-nose-pliers-4-in-330733090#.YK0yn4jCiBE.link

I made up a sample of the 008 wrapped twice around a copper eyelet, then 2 layers of serving wire, then sealed it in epoxy. Will try a pull test tomorrow, then 'oil can' it till it breaks. I have high hopes it will be better than the crimp method. Plus it only took 10 minutes to make. I will report back tomorrow with the results. Anyone else try this method? Kevin.

I always use small aluminum tubes which I chamfer on both ends inside with an Xacto #11. Then with a second loop to lock the slippage, crimp twice with round nose pliers. Then, heat shrink tubing over the ferrule to relax the stress on the line ends.  As a final touch, the up line tubes were red, the down lines black.

Very durable setup.  👍

The pull test requirement for 008 lines is 5lbs. I used double that. On the 1st pull test the Crimped end slid immediately then snapped. On the 2nd test the wrapped end lifted the full 10 lbs off the ground, then the wire snapped. See attached.

If you are not set entirely on steel lines why not use 20 lb. power pro, 2 loops and a Sig 1/2a handle that you can slide the line through for easy adjustment? I dismissed .008 steel lines a long time ago, too much hassle!

Ray, that was my very next idea. Are the Power Pro lines the same as the spiderwire(?) I've heard about? Are they equal to or better than the 008 lines in terms of performance and durability? The only non steel flying lines I've used for 1/2a was Dacron, and during flight it felt like the plane was attached to an elastic band!  Kevin.

Kevin,

1. The pliers you show work great for crimping. I use a similar pair for any lines I decide to crimp.

2. The pull test of 5 lbs is for the airplane, which means that for normal flight that load is shared. So your test was fairly severe if you applied 10 lb to a single line. That is 4x Factor of Safety on top of the FOS already built into the rules. To be successful with small models everything must be scaled down to match the real loads.

3. If you have the right materials and techniques, it is understood in industry (not just model airplane applications) that a proper crimp will withstand more load than the cable minimum strength quoted.

4. If you are damaging the wire inside the crimp, then you have the wrong sleeves, or are using an inappropriate tool, or crimping too hard. The sleeves must be made of soft material to conform to the wire. Deforming the sleeve work hardens it. Your description sounds like you may be using an oversize copper sleeve that is not dead soft.

5. I have purchased commercial .008 line kits and they had the same sleeves as used on .015 and .018 lines. This is ridiculously bad. No one would get a good result because the force to crush the sleeve will likely damage the wire. The amount of finesse is too high to get a consistent result. The solution are some of the tiny sleeves that are the perfect size for this. Soft copper. I got my stash from MBS.

6. The steel lines can be pretty fussy. Changing to Spiderwire makes all of that go away. You just have to tie the right knots to get good results. I like them just fine, especially if I am working with kids, since they are much more tolerant of mishandling. That said, I prefer the .008's when I'm flying a "good" airplane.

7. Dacron lines are horrible. Better to use them to make kites....

Dave