If you’re keeping up with my reviews at the moment, you’ll have seen the review I did of a double electrical socket to replace a knackered one in my living room. Well, it turns out that I had a few other bits and bobs of electrical work that involved stripping back and connecting several cables, and instead of using lots of connector blocks which look messy, I decided to invest in a good quality crimping tool and bought this set.>>>>>>WHAT’S IN THE BOX?Well, this set of tools actually comes in a really nice carry case, so you’ll probably find the case wrapped in a bag rather than inside a box. Once unzipped, the case contains two tools; a wire stripper and a crimping tool, which are held in place with elastic and velcro strapping. The left side of the case has four small pouches which contain two crimping ‘dies’ in each of them as well as some extra bits and bobs - and you also get a hex-headed screwdriver for removing and inserting the screws that hold the dies in place in the crimper.>>>>>>FIRST IMPRESSSIONS?Well, the tools themselves are magnificently chunky and, if I’m being honest, a little bewildering as I’ve never used tools such as these before - but like anything it will probably take a little messing around with them in order to figure out how they work. They’re really good quality, pleasingly heavy and have really nice ratcheted actions on the handles.>>>>>>STRIP FOR ME!The first thing I had a go at was the wire stripper/cutter and found it to be amazing at stripping the sheathing off some chunky copper cabling I had hanging around my garage and it made remarkably short work of cutting through it. The stripping bit can be adjusted for different gauges of cable and, once set, should make short work of them if you’ve got a few to do.>>>>>>CRIMPINGNow, one thing that needs to be pointed out is that this tool kit doesn’t arrive with any of the sleeves for crimping bits onto the ends of or joining cables; you’ll need to buy some separately, but once I’d got some of them I was amazed at how easy this thing makes it to do that! You simply insert the bare wire into one of the sleeves, hold it in the jaws of the crimper and squeeze it to crimp them tightly together. The ratcheted handle makes it incredibly easy to apply a good amount of pressure and it’s nice that the handles themselves are fairly soft and forgiving.>>>>>>SUMMING UPThis is a great set of tools which makes working with electrical wiring easier than it was when I first started doing the job that I’m doing, so I can imagine that they’ll come out for any wire work I’ve got to do in the future!