Originally Posted by Salubrious

You could always make up a brake cable that uses a modern cable housing couldn't you? They don't compress and have a lot less friction, and have the advantage of looking innocent enough on the bike.

BTW, recently I've been working on my 1935 Sports, which uses drum brakes front and rear. The rear cable was original but in pretty deplorable condition. I made up a replacement by obtaining a vintage NOS cable housing and inner cable, cutting it to the right length and then removed the cable end from the old original cable.

I did this by putting the cable in a vise and heating it up with a torch. The solder went molten and I removed the cable end. I then placed it on the new cable along with the associated hardware of the old cable. I then clamped the cable in the vise in such a way that I could tap the individual wires of the new cable apart and spread them so they wanted to hold the cable end on.

Then I heated up a tiny stainless bowl (again using the torch) that contained about a tablespoon of solder made of 95% antimony and 5% silver. You can obtain the solder at Graingers and the like. Once the sold was molten I dipped the cable end in it, held it there for about 10 seconds and removed it and allowed it to cool. No filing was needed; the solder filled the cable end quite well and the cable was ready to go after it cooled off.

This is how the original cable was made BTW. The trick really was sorting out what solder is used.