I'd solder the inner wire, then heatshrink over that.
Then I'd solder the mesh, after that complete the mesh for continued RF protection with either mesh (from butchered cable) or metallic (aluminium or copper) foil and then heatshrink that (maybe two layers for increased strength)..
Butt splices are better for power connections imho. (They would also change the wave impedance more than soldering, possibly causing reflections/shadows).

Solder and heatshrink is the way to go. It's even good for power connections, but you will need a more massive soldering iron. The only cases where soldering is not good is with screw terminal blocks - i've seen people tin the ends of a wire before inserting it and tightening it and that will result in a bad connection. Or if the cable needs to flex a lot and there is a risk of shearing at the soldered joint.

For this application, solder is the way to go as VGA cables pack their conductors fairly densely. In places where you're using lugs, a high pressure crimp is even better.

Nprod wrote:

The only cases where soldering is not good is with screw terminal blocks - i've seen people tin the ends of a wire before inserting it and tightening it and that will result in a bad connection. Or if the cable needs to flex a lot and there is a risk of shearing at the soldered joint.

The actual reason why this has even been legally forbidden in Germany is that tinned terminal connections creep under pressure (especially when thermally cycled, for example through the load currents or nearby heat emitting components), resulting in the connection come loose over time. Which is proven to be responsible for a substantial portion of the fires caused by electric appliances/wiring.

A commonly known example are light bulb appliances, where burnt terminal wires are common not because of too high bulb rating, but because of the high temperatures caused by bad (high-resistance) contact.

What would be the *best*? Keeping the plugs on, buying a gender changer, and just connecting the two cables. Minimises impedance shift and electrical noise issues. Also means you don't have to mess about with joining shield braids.

You could also mount a bulkhead VGA socket to the chassis of whatever you're passing through and connect to each side.

If it needs to pass through a wire bore sized hole, I'd honestly lop off the vga plug, then re-solder in a new one. Db15s are fairly cheap and if you've got a soldering hand, not awful to solder to. Plus you can get metal backshell ones so you don't need to solder the braid or mess with pigtail connections *shudder*. Advantage of this way is that if you're going between protocols (e.g. vga into a DVI-A), you can just solder the wires to the pins you need.

<== was an EMC engineer for years. This is how I'd do it.

Edit: Clarified when I'm talking about wires vs cables.

Vaudane wrote:

What would be the *best*? Keeping the plugs on, buying a gender changer, and just connecting the two cables. Minimises impedance […]
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What would be the *best*? Keeping the plugs on, buying a gender changer, and just connecting the two cables. Minimises impedance shift and electrical noise issues. Also means you don't have to mess about with joining shield braids.

You could also mount a bulkhead VGA socket to the chassis of whatever you're passing through and connect to each side.

If it needs to pass through a wire bore sized hole, I'd honestly lop off the vga plug, then re-solder in a new one. Db15s are fairly cheap and if you've got a soldering hand, not awful to solder to. Plus you can get metal backshell ones so you don't need to solder the braid or mess with pigtail connections *shudder*. Advantage of this way is that if you're going between protocols (e.g. vga into a DVI-A), you can just solder the wires to the pins you need.

<== was an EMC engineer for years. This is how I'd do it.

Edit: Clarified when I'm talking about wires vs cables.

Out of all the (not enjoyable) options, I agree that this is the best one. There's also the possibility for crimp style VGA plugs if you hate soldering serial and VGA connectors.