Shrink wrap tubing for wires with "large stuff" at both ends?

Question

Just finally got round to trying to sort the slow cooker with the melted cable.

I've cut the large black outer sheath around the wires in the area with obvious damage and revealed an earth wire with bare wire showing through the sheath.

[Interestingly my continuity tester didn't show leakage to earth, but some leakage between live and neutral. However that seems to have gone now that I have separated the three wires in the obviously damaged area. Ah! - just remembered that the control switch was on High and is now Off so I was seeing resistance but connection through the heating element. The joys of writing something down.]

This reminded me of an issue with heat shrink wrap. If you have a moulded plug at one end and a device at the other, how do you get shrink wrap onto the cable?

I have just imagined a sheet of material which wraps around itself then seals and shrinks when heated. Sort of self-amalgamating heat shrink wrap. However I haven't found any by searching so far. Just wondered if such a thing existed.

Cheers

Dave R

Andrew · Accepted Answer

I would open it up and replace the entire cable and fit a new Mk plug.

newshound · Answer

No such animal AFAIK. Wouldn't it be nice to have. I think the highest linear shrink ratio is 4 (perhaps 5) to 1. Some of the looser braided sleeves will open up significantly more than this, you can then stretch them down and bind with ordinary PVC tape for mechanical protection and a reasonably tidy result. Otherwise it is self amalgamating tape, which I find a bit nasty.

charles · Answer

In article     >, David    snipped-for-privacy@btcut off the moulded plug - slde on heat shrink and then fit an new plug

nothanks · Answer

I have a role of heat-shrink tape that I "inherited" many years ago, so it's available from somewhere

The Natural Philosopher · Answer

You cut the cable, and use solder and heat shrink to repair the damaged section

Andrew · Answer

It tends to be stiffer when shrunk-on so ends up creating new stresspoints at each end of the heatshrunk tube

nightjar · Answer

No idea whether it is still available but about 20 years ago, I had a very minor leak at a joint in a factory airline made from galvanised pipe. Externally applied sealing mastic failed to stop it and remaking the joint would have involved unscrewing about a dozen joints further down the line to get to it. I found a shrink wrap material that came as a sheet, which had an adhesive strip along one edge. It wrapped around the pipe and the two edges stuck together. Heating it sealed the adhesive and shrunk what was now a tube. IIRC, it only was available in quite large sizes. I was putting it over 2" pipe, so that wasn't a problem for me. It was also very expensive, even for shrink wrap.

Brian Gaff (Sofa · Answer

This was what was suggested way back at the start of this thread. Normally slow cookers, kettles and toasters all have silly short cables on them to my mind in the first place so it may well be the opportunity to remedy this. Brian

Shrink wrap tubing for wires with "large stuff" at both ends?

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