These cable cutters cut both cable and housing perfectly. They made my job of replacing all cables and housing on a couple of bikes easy and cut my time substantially. Its not something I do every day but buying these was worth the price for doing the occasional project right. Very happy with the quick shipping and delivery time.
I've been cutting my cable and housing with some good side cutter, and the housing always end up flatten. With these, I don't have this problem, and it's so much easier to cut too. I should have bought these sooner.
Nothing spectacular here, but they do the job well. Cut my shiftbrake cables without causing them to fray, which is about all you really want in cutters (kind of the reason you would buy dedicated cable cutters instead of using cheap linemans pliers or diagonal cutters, etc...). Compressed the housing a tiny bit when cutting those, but nothing that prevented the cables from getting through easily. I think a lot of that also has to do with the quality of housing as well - the really cheap stuff will probably crush a lot regardless of the cutters you're using. Anyways, these work for my needs. Probably others out there (even non-bike specific ones) that work just as well for cheaper, but with the deal I got from BTD I don't feel bad at all about buying them.
I expected more from Park Tool products so I spent the extra money for this item. I found that the blade are not sharpefficient enough to cut clean though cables and spread the individual wires. The $10 wire cutters caused me to twist the wires together just as much as this tool.
If you are going to replace your cables, do it right and use this tool. I didn't and wasted my time and money. It makes cable replacement a lot easier. Worth the money. No frayed ends!
This is a nice heavy duty cutter. The handles are nicely padded and long enough to provide good leverage. It works well cutting cable with little effort. It works really well crimping cable ends. Sadly this does not work well at cutting housing. Every time I cut housing the sprirals get bent over and I have to use diagonal cutters to clean up the casing. If I don't do that, the bent edge ends up damaging the cable. I also end up spending more time filing the end flat. I have a cutter that I bought at half the price that works much better at cutting housing and leaves a nice clean edge that only needs a little clean up with a file. As a bonus, the cheaper cutter includes a built in awl that works great at opening up the housing edge. I expected a better tool at this price range.
Park tools put every other tool to shame. The quality and bike-specific nature of the tool is incomparable. You can spend less for a tool, but it will not work as well as this one. I have bought several cutters over the last 20 years, but this will be the last one.
I needed this to replace the shift cable housings on my bikes. But it not only works for cable housing. it cuts cables clean and has a crimper for the cable end caps and the cable housing caps.
This is a great tool for do it yourself kind of people. I bought and re-cabled my bike. I ride my bike enough that I might use this tool again in a year or more, so it's one of these single purpose tools I wished I didn't have to buy, because it is sitting in my tool box, but hay it cuts wires pretty well.
Very well designed tool, I am in the used bike portion of my cycling hobby and because so frequently I am replacing cables. This tool makes the process much simpler and cleaner allowing you to cut and crimp fitting more accurately than with a normal cutter.
I'm comparing this (the right tool) to a Dremel tool (not quite the right tool). The Dremel does cut the cable, but melts the sheathing a bit and leaves a rough edge - probably leading to additional friction on the cable. The Park tool is well made (As usual) and will help prevent damaging the new cable you just bought!
