I do this for a living and there are 4 basic ways of attaching ends on to cables. For lifelines, C Sherman Johnson Marine has fittings that look like machine swage fittings, called Hand crimp fittings, but are attached by putting the wire inside the tube and crimping it down along the shaft with a Nicro Press tool that is not like the ones used in other industries. They look a lot like a swage fitting, but are different. The tools available to do this are either bench mounted with one handle, or a tool that is like the crimper most people have been writing about with two handles much like a bolt cutter, but it crimps the fitting secure to the wire.
Another way, when you use one of the two types of crimpers I just mentioned, is to Nicro Press a loop, with a SS thimble inside the loop and then an oval collar is crimped to secure the loop and you attach fittings on to that loop. Or, if the fitting doesn't have a clevis pin to open up the hardware you want to attach, then you thread the loop through the fitting and then Nicro Press the oval sleeve with a thimble.
There is another available tool that is totally mechanical, cheaper and slower. It is two aluminum pieces that have different size crimp orifices for different size cable/fittings and much like a flare tool used for metal hoses, you slowly crimp down the piece with the tightening of the wing nuts which squeezes the two halves crimping the fitting. The larger crimp tools mentioned above have different size orifices for different sized cable/fittings.
The stronger and more expensive method of attaching fittings to bare cable is a swage machine with dies to match the various cable fitting sizes. There are hydraulic swagers (pronounced "swedger") , like what I have, or mechanical swagers that can be bench mounted or hand held. The latter are often called banana swagers because if you aren't careful and don't take the time to rotate the fitting, the fitting will end up bent like a banana shape rather than staying straight. This is not so much a problem with hydraulic swagers.
The other kind of terminal fittings for cable are the likes of Sta-Lok which comes apart with tools. They have basically two pieces that house everything and then a wedge to bend the wire around and a former that jams the wire ends and it all screws together sort of like a shaft stuffing box.
Hand Crimp fittings look like swage fittings, but are very different and you do not want to put a hand crimp fitting into a swage machine and you do not want to try to hand crimp a swage fitting.
With vinyl cable used for lifelines, you have to trim the vinyl off the wire the right length so the wire fits into the fitting and if you are good at it, the vinyl will butt up to the fitting perfectly. C Sherman Johnson even makes a tool shaped like a corkscrew (but fatter), that sort of works like a pencil sharpener to peel off the vinyl coating.
Be safe and don't let anyone tell you that a crimper from a different industry will do a proper job. It won't.
