This is an excellent example of a bad crimping and stripping tool. These hardware store quality crimper's will deflect, flex and cut the heat shrink thus defeating the purpose of spending good money on great terminals. The biggest worry with crimper's like this is the lack of strength you can achieve due to the very narrow cross section or thickness of the jaws.

This should illustrate why NOT to use cheap crimpers! The bottom tool is the Ancor Products heat shrink crimper and the top one is a standard $12.00 cut, strip & crimp tool which certainly does none of it's intended uses well at all.

The thicker jaws of the Ancor Products crimper will yield a significantly thicker crimp band and lead to a better cold formed crimp.

This is an Anchor Products Double Crimp Ratchet Tool Part No. 701030. This crimper is not as ideal for use on heat shrink connectors as the previous crimper but will work on them.

This crimper, as shown, is designed to crimp standard marine grade insulated connectors from 22ga wire to 10ga wire. This tool allows for the barrel and the strain relief sleeve to be crimped, in one motion, and at the same time.

One other key feature, of a high quality ratchet type crimper, is that you can simply re-calibrate when and if they ever go out of adjustment. You can also order different jaws or "dies" for this crimper to crimp different types of terminations such as BNC or RG type cable terminations.

This photo shows a few of the different types of crimp terminals you can buy. The terminals in the top row are marine grade crimp connectors with built in adhesive lined heat shrink and are the best possible solution to use on a boat. Yes, they are expensive but worth it, and they are available from manufacturers such as Ancor Products, AMP, and FTZ.

The second row of connectors are marine grade but non-heat shrink. While these terminals stand head and shoulders above the bottom row they are not sealed connections and as such are open to the marine environment. When used in conjunction with UL Listed tinned marine grade wire these crimp connectors will last a long time provided they are not in any direct contact with water such as in a bilge.

The third row represents Wal*Mart quality connectors that should not be used on a boat! A good tip when buying connectors is this; if you can't see through the insulation, it's most likely vinyl, and should be avoided! The vinyl insulation on this type of connector can and will crack and the raw metal thickness, where the wire meets the connector to be crimped, is very, very weak in comparison to top quality terminals from reputable manufacturers such as those listed above.

OK, So I've ruined a few connectors for the sake of illustration, but, I did this to show what you should find beneath that tinned surface. I simply ground away the tinned coating to reveal the solid copper.

This is fairly self explanatory. My only suggestion here is to use proper wire cutters similar to the ones pictured. In this photo I've chosen a pair of Klein High-Leverage Cable Cutter's Part No. 63050. They cost about $20.00 at Home Depot & Chanel-Lock also makes a set that are slightly less money. The right tool, for the right job, is always well worth the expense!

Using a set of Diagonal Cut Pliers or "Dykes" as they are normally called will not make as clean or as nice a cut as a good set of cable cutters will.