Finding the correct hose ferrule crimper is difficult because one has to do three things simultaneously to get a good crimp: 1. Find the connector that will fit inside the air hose; 2. Find a ferrule that will fit over the air hose and connector; 3. Find the correctly sized crimp die that will fit the ferrule. I tried the

. It's a terrible solution. See my review of that product. This crimper is a much better solution. Not perfect, but the best I could find for a consumer solution at a reasonable price.



Pros:

- It's the same crimper rebranded under about 6 different names, so just buy the least expensive one you can find.

- It's a heavy chunk of metal: About 10 pounds. It's stable on a bench.

- Various dies to fit various ferrules. So far, I've crimped

,

, and

ferrules. The dies aren't necessarily a perfect fit for each; however, one can adjust the pressure on the handle and just not close the dies all the way if the die is a little bit smaller than desired.

- The top bar of the crimper can be removed for unique crimping situations. I had to remove the top bar in order to fit the hose and ferrule in when crimping one side of a

.

- It's a little bit of a learning curve to get a good crimp. I had a tendency to overcrimp to start with. Then I discovered that the ferrule doesn't need tons of crimp in order to seal. See tips below.

- There's a slack take-up thumbwheel at the front of the dies. This comes in handy for unique crimping situations. For example, by adjusting the thumbwheel out, it prevents the handle from having to be pulled down so far before the dies all close together. That helped me crimp those 3-way barbed tees when one of the tees was sticking up and wanted to interfere with the crimper handle.



Cons:

- As others have noted, the handle and the black leverage bars are a bit sloppy. The sloppiness doesn't interfere with crimping because the crimp dies are precisely held in top and bottom channels.

- The two short black leverage bars that press all the dies together are a bit close to the last die. I had one instance where those bars interfered with the quick connect I was crimping and prevented closing the press all the way.



Tip:

- For the best crimp, pick a die that is just slightly smaller than the ferrule. Crimp once toward the top of the ferrule close to the connector. Then, slide down and crimp again closer to the hose. To make it pretty, align one of the ring impressions in the ferrule with the ring on the die. That'll make the crimp ring indentations evenly spaced on the ferrule. Then, turn the ferrule 90 degrees and crimp again twice. The crimps in the attached picture of the blue hose show what happened when I didn't follow this technique. The yellow hose demonstrates how this technique makes the ferrule look pretty.

- Don't crimp the very end of the ferrule edge next to the hose. Instead, stay away from the end of the ferrule just a bit. That way, the end of the ferrule will be round and even instead of having exposed, sharp crimps.

- Don't overcrimp. Close the dies just far enough to get the desired results. That helps prevent creating the sharp peaks of crimped brass on the ferrule. In the attached pictures, the ferrules on the blue hose are overcrimped (note the sharp brass folds and peaks). I learned from that and crimped less on the yellow hose.