This sort of cable making and cable swaging (that's the word you are looking for for your question) machine would be mostly applicable to aircraft control cable and now are primarily used for sailboat rigging. Lead is soft so it would be formed (swaged) on the cable. I'll bet that forming of the cable itself gave incredible pull tests once the end was formed over the ball. There are military specifications for these sort of cable assemblies. Early aircraft controls used cables extensively.
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Whitneyville, CT
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Wayne Bingham <blkmktbks@gmail.com>
> While on the subject of interesting tools, I recently acquired an
> interesting cable making tool, or maybe better described as a
> "machine". It's a fairly elaborate production-type device, but I'm
> not sure of the approximate time-period. The devise basically "preps"
> the end of the cable, I'm assuming to accept the appropriate
> cable-end. This is the part that's unclear. Were the ends (likely
> lead) formed in some kind of mold? Or possibly crimped on?
>
> My friend John's shop was the appropriate repository for this tool.
> If you saw his shop, you would probably understand and agree.
>
> The machine can be seen on John's site here:
>
> http://lincolnsmithy.wordpress.com/
>
> We are trying to find out anything about the device that we can, but
> primarily time-frame and the end-termination type and method.
>
> Any ideas out there?
>
> Thanks.
> --
> Wayne Bingham
> Lovettsville, Virginia USA