SWA advice

I have some 10mm SWA that I shall be using to supply power to an outbuilding. I know the general consensus is that terminating it is not for the uninitiated (nor, as I discovered yesterday when I stripped some of it back, for the feeble or faint-hearted ).

But I am good with my hands, and have a natural empathy with mechanical things, and I am quite confident that with a bit of practice I'll be able to fit it into glands and get a good termination on the armour. I also have more cable than I need, and so have some on which I can practice.

So a couple of questions:

1) Are glands re-usable, or do they contain components like a compression olive that make them 1-shot? If not re-usable, how many goes might I need to become proficient?

2) What's the favourite way to cut through the armour?

Thanx

not if carefull

i would recomend hacksaw (junior) cut through sheath & half way through armour (thats where experiance comes in, knowing when half way is) strip sheath, break armour off, etc etc.......

at least the indoor type glands seem perfectly reuseable

not sure about the outdoor type ones

bascially you cut the end off the plastic cover and thread it back along the cable

then you thread the locknut over the cable

then you fit the other part of the gland to the box rememebring to put in an earth tag (it attaches to the box with a small nut)#

then you strip away some outer sheeath
then you cut back the armour

the armour threads over the outside of the main part of the gland and is samwitched between that and the locknut

the flex like inner of the swa continues into the box and is terminated in the nomal way

BW's are easilly re-used, CW's can be if they were installed and removed correctly and with care.

However if they are BICC CW glands or the top quality BW's, then they are one shot as they contain brass Olives..but I don't expect you'll be using BICC glands somehow.

OK - I'll practice with a BW first.

Make 2 cuts about 2" apart with a hacksaw around the outer insulation - One cuts through the outer sheath only, the other (nearest the end of the cable) substancially scores the armour through the outer sheath.

Strip off the outer insulation to the cut nearest the cable end and bend and break off the armour, then fit the back parts of the gland and strip off the last bit of outer insulation.