I use a pair of side cutters or an ancient pair of pliers I found that are marked "piano wire". Both work well.
Good cable cutter for bicycle gear cables
May 30, 2008
24 Replies
Don't remember the make but the pair I have are about 40 years old and have cut hundreds if not thousands of cables - I had a bike shop until I retired. I bought them in a yacht chandlers - they use them for cutting stainless rigging wire - and they are still as good as new.
Yes. Just don't bother with cutters not designed for hard wire. Which is surprisingly quite a few even expensive makes.
I just use a steel block and a cold chisel hit with a hammer sharply.
Dave
I've used these CK cutters on the farm for fencing wire and I'm fairly sure that I used them to cut the stainless stranded cable that my wife bought in Ikea for hanging curtains from. The cable was about 3.5mm and much tougher than the stuff that I use for fencing - I think it was the same material used for rigging boats.
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tried them on bike cable though and I don't have any to hand that I could cut to test them at the moment.
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