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Tools Required for the job

Connector parts .. The housing, the teflon insulator, the center pin, and the small teflon spacer ring.

Two ends of the cable. The end on the left is good. The outer shield is very close to being round. On the right is an end that was cut with a wire cutter. it is compressed and there is likely a significant impedance mismatch, even farther up the cable.

Measure and score the shield, at 0.12 inches back from the end. This is the length required to mount the center pin and the teflon ring insulator.

Use a VERY sharp knife to cut the outer shield. Do so such that you cut through the outer shield woithout nicking (or cutting off) the center conductor.

Here's what the end result should look like. The outer conductor should be uniform and spaced away from the center conductor, and not compressed in any plane.

Next, slide the teflon ring insulator over the end of the center conductor. This piece prevents the shield from contacting anything inside the connector which may contact the center pin. Next step - soldering the center pin on.

make sure to tin the open end of the center pin before putting it onto the coax. The forceps/tweezers are helpful here, as gold plated metal things tend to conduct heat extremely well.... Be very careful not to tin the end too much. You want just a tiny amount of solder so that when you slide the center conductor into the pin, solder doesn't bubble out. Just enough to make a good contact.

The center pin goes on as shown. Also, make sure you have lightly tinned the center conductor of the coax. again, not too much. Some experience helps in finding out what is enough. If it does bubble out, some desoldering braid can help clean up any mess. Thankfully, all the parts in use so far are either teflon or metal and don't melt easily.

Here's a center pin soldered to the end of a coaxial cable. note that the pin compresses the teflon ring slightly, but not enough to deform it. When putting the center pin onto the coax, heat the pin with a clean, tinned soldering iron to allow the pre-tinned coax end and center pin to slide together. Remove the heat and the connection is made. The following short video clip shows this method. (MPEG video)

Now that the center pin is attached, and any solder on its surface has been removed (this is very important), slide the outer shell over the end of the coax.

Slide the teflon insulator over the center pin. It will be obvious how far it should go. Don't worry too much, as re-aligment is possible in the next few steps.

A side view

your connector should now look like this. Pull the outer shield up to the back of the teflon. The next step is to force the teflon into its socket inside the outer shield. This involves a unique tool. The end of a pen.....

Holding the teflon insulator with half of a pen (insides removed, it is essentilly a tube). Now, push the gold outer shield until you see the following..

The teflon insulator is flush with the ring inside the outer shell housing. The pin sits at the proper distance (this is determined by a step in the diameter of the pin, which under close inspection is rather obvious.

Lastly, the outer shield must be soldered to the coax. Just place the iron at the edge of the outer shell ring, on the coax, so that the iron heats up both pieces and feed solder into the seam. The result should look like this:

The bead of solder is even and has flowed onto the outer shell and the coax.