By reusable I meant the cable, the rubber caps are easy to remove without damaging the cable. A useful thing. Swapped out some shift levers the other day and the cable ends were all nicely together and easy to feed back through the cable housing. Keeps the cable ends from fraying. Keeps from shortening the cable to cut off damage.

Just a standard TIG? Can you do that tight enough to not leave a blob? Will it feed through a housing like a freshly cut cable?

Pretty good skills.

Using 1/4" cable caps means I only lose that much cable if I cut them off...and I don't mess around with my cables enough to ever get to the point where I need to replace them because they got too short.

The cost of new cables would be worth it not to have--say it with me--fugly cable caps!

Renoir once said something along the line of, "there are enough ugly things in the world without me adding to them." Jagwire apparently never heard that before.

Like attitudes?

Sure, I like them!

VAR made an electric cable cutter that cut the cable and fused the end, so it wouldn't unravel:
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...a045867119.jpg

Now that makes sense. The thought of trying to start an arc on the end of a cable seemed tough to me.

I've seen articles on making a spot welder out of an old microwave. Would probably lend itself well to a cable cutter.

Twist weld cables. Only thing different for bike cables is that you don't need a large torch, just a mini butane torch or even a cigarette lighter will work. I also just clamp the cables in the brakes/derailleurs instead of a vise shown in the vid. Key is to rotate the drill slowly (make sure you're going in the correct direction) while pulling and maybe around an inch away from the cut. Might be too anal for some here but works beautifully to keep ends unraveling.

BTW I've used a touch of liquid electrical tape to seal cable ends. Sticks wonderfully, better than plastic dip, yet didn't take too much effort to peel off with a thumbnail when I needed to remove the cable.

I found this roundup the other day while trying to replace my own AWOL cutters: https://bluehomediy.com/a-diyers-gui...utting-pliers/.

It's geared toward general DIY use, but a few of the models mentioned (including Knipex) overlap with what folks here are recommending. Worth a skim if you're tool-curious or just enjoy window shopping cutters you probably don't need but now suddenly want.

Also +1 to whoever mentioned tools hiding in plain sight. Last month I found my spoke wrench chilling in the spice drawer. No idea.

my Knipex 74-21-200, 8" side cutters have cut over 3000 spokes, and an untold number of brake, shift, and cable housings for bikes, so far... still going strong.
they leave a clean cut, even on SIS cable housings... undoubtedly the toughest cut on a bike build.

the only issue i can find with them is that i need to go back and remove a small flattened piece on some spiral wound housings...the knipex side cutters also handle that micro-cut well.

my old park cutters made a mess out of stainless steel cables.. the bypass cutters left single cable strands often.. some Brake Housings were Smashed flat, instead of cleanly cut.
they began struggling with SIS housing after about 6 months too....

previously, i've had ChannelLock 8" side cutters,,, they worked great when new, but got dull at more than twice the rate of the knipex, so far...

i've had these knipexs for well over a year now, maybe pushing two years?.. the ChannelLocks HAD to be replaced at 1 year or less... SS spokes are not kind to cutting edges.

Thanks goes out to VeganBikes for steering me to the Knipex brand... :beer: