Other than not wanting to burn something down, what was wrong with the cadweld suggestion? I've watched half a dozen or so shots and they are worth the price of admission.
Given the cost of copper, and the predominance of wood construction in the bulk of my clients occupancies, . . . homes, that is, the awkwardness of a shot up between the basement ceiling joist, just under the wood subfloor and along side other mechanicals, I'd prefer to not use a thermal process. And doing a shot inside an existing disconnect or existing service center down in the 100 Amp size would be impossible.
But you are absolutely right about the quality of the resulting splice. It is beautiful. I was strongly leaning towards it for a bit, till I learned of the process of looking up the compression connector first at UL.
Case in point. I had a 100 Amp Square D NEMA 3R two pole circuit breaker to install as a service disconnect to extend an existing service to clear a new addition on the back of a single family dwelling. The disconnect was supplied by the homeowner and had only three lugs on the grounded conductor bus. Rather than mess up a very tightly priced job by pulling off and running to the parts house to provide one more lug, I grabbed a T&B C-Tap and applied it with the TBM 41 hand tool to tie the ground rod conductor to the GEC running in to the metal water service. It's a handy resource that has found a new home in my overfull truck.
