Crimping tool for shaping "cage wire" ?

[Stephen Tashiro]

I think it would be interesting to be able to make irregular shapes out of the "cage wire" sold in the garden department of hardware stores. Perhaps this could be done by crimping the sides of cells in the wire mesh to make them smaller. But what would be a good crimping tool for this purpose? A simple V crimp would do, but it would have to be a tool that could fit into the roughly 1 inch cells of the mesh. And it would be best if it made the crimp so it stayed in the plane of the mesh instead of sticking out from it.

[Rick Potter]

Ahh, big pair of needle nose pliers??

RP

[Stephen Tashiro]

The jaws of pliers don't crimp. I've tried using needlenose pliers to bend the sides of the cells but this deforms the whole cell. What's needed is a genuine crimping tool that will leave the ends of the side of a cell straight and crimp the middle.

[Rick Potter]

OK, gimme another shot. How about the pliers that HF sells for crimping automotive wire connectors? The big ones, about 8" long.

If you crimp one side of a cell won't this throw off other sides, then if you crimp the other sides, the adjacent cells?

RP

[Stephen Tashiro]

I don't know the tool you're talking about, but it's always interesting to browse the local Harbor Freight.

[Dave Lehnert]

http://www.harborfreight.com/9-1-2-half-inch-wire-crimping-tool-36411.html

[Norris Randall]

Check out this tool. I think it will work for you.

http://www.pennstateind.com/store/N-CRIMP.html