Jim,
You've got a couple of really good suggestions here. I have everything
needed to do silver brazing, except the bottles, which I can retrieve
the next time I'm in Las Vegas. So this would be a no cost solution.
However, there is one undesirable aspect of soldering lugs that might
also apply to brazing. Solder can wick up the wire and inch or two
resulting in an inflexible cable near the termination. A small thing
but it always bugged me. And then there's the damage to the insulation
which could be great at brazing temperatures. Your other suggestion
that I get the connections crimped at my local welding store has great
merit since I usually buy my lugs there anyway. But maybe the best
solution, since I seem to be fabricating a lot of heavy-duty cables
lately, would be to buy one of these:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=66150