Finally gave in and tried Park Tool's cable cutter after years of cheap ones

I've been using the same $12 wire cutters from the hardware store for cable housing for about 5 years now. Always thought the fancy bike specific tools were just marketing hype. Last week my buddy brought his Park Tool CN-10 over while I was building up a touring bike for a customer. He handed it to me and said just try it once. Man I hate admitting I was wrong but that first cut through Shimano shift housing was like cutting butter. No frayed ends no crushed outer layer just a clean perfect slice. Took me maybe 20 minutes total off my build time because I wasn't fighting with the ends. My old cutters leave that little lip that snags when you're feeding inner cable through. I know Park stuff is expensive but $35 for something that saves me that much hassle on every build seems worth it now. Anybody else had a tool they thought was overpriced that turned out to be legit?

2 comments

2 Comments

noraj794d ago

Wait though, isn't the CN-10 specifically for regular cable and housing, not the compressionless stuff on touring bikes? I feel like I read somewhere that the angled jaws don't play as nice with the thicker spiral-wound housing you usually see on touring builds. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a good tool, just wondering if the cut is actually cleaner with the cheaper ones on that particular setup.

adamcoleman4d ago

Whoa hold on there, I think there's a little mixup on the housing types. The CN-10 actually works great on compressionless housing too, I've used it on my own touring setup with Jagwire stuff and it's the same clean cut. The spiral wound housing you're thinking of is the old school standard stuff, but most touring builds these days use compressionless housing for better brake feel and shift performance. The angled jaws on the CN-10 are designed to shear through both types cleanly without crushing the outer layer, which is actually harder to do with straight cutters on the thicker housing. I think the confusion comes from people mixing up "compressionless" with "spiral wound" since they look similar from the outside but the internal layup is totally different. So yeah, the Park tool is legit for both kinds, no worries there.