March 21, 201016 yr Heres a spear im making out of a 4 foot piece of logging cable sorry for not getting any work in progress shots I got it to this piont and thought Hey I better take a pic. Not done yet
April 28, 201016 yr how exactly does one work with cable anyway? Is all cable forgeable? what kind of pattern does it make in the steel?
May 3, 201016 yr Author Well you dont want to use old old rusty stuff if one can use newer stuff that has little rust that would be good. I start by cutting me a piece of good logging cable in about a 3 foot piece and heating it in the middle get a good heat on it then bend it in half. Heat it up some more and twist it up really tight then I heat in middle and repeat, you dont have to do this folding if your wanting to make smaller stuff, but in my case when I was making this spear i folded it one more time twisting it after every fold. Then weld it all together and make a bar of the whole stuf and there you are make what you need. I hope this helps man have fun.............. and it will make a wavy pattern it really deppends on how you twist it up.
May 3, 201016 yr Not all cable is forgable: avoid plated cable, cables with a lot of plastic lines through it, etc. Not all forgable cable is hardenable---I know you didn't ask this but I didn't want you surprised if you forge weld up a mild steel cable and then find you can't harden it.
May 7, 201016 yr Nice Spear, I was wondering if their is anyway of getting rid of the galvanized coating on cable to make it weldable as in Australia it seems to be the only stuff i have found yet.
May 7, 201016 yr Unwind it, soak every individual piece in HCl, wind it back up. Better to contact a cable dealer and see if they can get a "sample" of un-plated stuff...
May 8, 201016 yr Crane cable, and rigging cable are high carbon and usually not galvanized. I am fairly certain that you will be able to find some sort of crane/rigging source in Austrailia. You may try companies that move machinery, or repair heavy equipment. Cables have to be changed out when they show wear or fray. They still will have enough material to weld up into a nice billet and have nothing left but scrap value, so you can get the stuff cheap to free. Here in the states OSHA requires condemed cable to be cut into lengths that can not be used for anything again. It is certainly more convienient to cart home 3 ft pieces than a 200 ft coil!
May 27, 201016 yr Is there any way to make old rusty cable usable? I have a piece from a bridge that washed out at the place we used to camp when I was a kid so it has a bit of sentimental value. It would be cool to be able to make something out of it.
June 2, 201016 yr Author Is there any way to make old rusty cable usable? I have a piece from a bridge that washed out at the place we used to camp when I was a kid so it has a bit of sentimental value. It would be cool to be able to make something out of it. You could try unwinding it and wire brushing it really good wd40 it wind it back together.
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