I've been collecting up lengths of cable in various diameters for a few months now. I plan to make a few cable katanas in the future. My question is does anyone use a formula for calculating how much cable you need to make your desired blade length. I understand cable comes in many diameters as well as winding configurations. What I need is a way to estimate how much 1/2 inch cable I need to make a 30 inch blade 1/4 inch thick. Thanks for reading this.

Kevin

I'd go by weight. You know the volume of your blade ( 30" long x 1/4" thick x 1-1/2 wide = 11.25 cubic inches ) and steel is about 0.283 pounds per cubic inch (Thanks, Google!), so you need 3.18 pounds for your finished billet. Add for losses to scale and welding and snipping the messy ends off and I'd probably shoot for 4 pounds of cable to start with.

Hit the yard sales and pick up a cheap kitchen scale to weigh your cable.

There are table which show the actual area of the cross sections of various cables, but that requires knowing what cable you've got.

It's my understanding you lose almost 1/2 of the original diameter after the weld as the air space is collapsed. The weight idea is great!! I have all kinds of different braid types so it should be interesting to say the least.

How much mass of the cable did you lose to scale and such on the last cable blades you made? After making a few knives already, you should have a good guess about how much more to make the larger blade.

How much mass of the cable did you lose to scale and such on the last cable blades you made? After making a few knives already, you should have a good guess about how much more to make the larger blade.

Steve I haven't made any knives from cable yet. I'm just asking questions and doing my homework beforehand. I visited your site a few days ago. Very cool work. What style of jujutsu do you teach?

What style of jujutsu do you teach?

I have been teaching No Tora Ryu Jijitsu about 20 years now, its an American form of Yoshindo Juhitsu.

Back to the topic at hand, Its not recommended to start into bladesmithing with swords, they are not just a larger knife, too many things to learn, that needs to be understood or learned that all at once. Its not practical to try to learn everything all that at once.

To learn to forge quality blades, I suggest people first learn the basics of general blacksmithing, before attempting any of the more advanced fields. either blades or guns or whatever. I constantly see people asking simple first year apprentice questions about moving metal in the knife section, and there is no way to answer because they don't have any foundation to build on. So they cant understand our answers, then some get mad and accuse us of not answering! They fail to understand that answers to things that come up in advanced areas of smithing do not always have easy to follow 1 or 2 sentence answers, but with out a foundation to grow on most give up, after seeing their dream blade is nothing more than failure, which is sad.

I want to see others develop, to see what their tallent can bring forth, I am not trying to stop people from making blades, but many don't take time and effort to learn what is needed to make quality product, they want to take short cuts, and then after they fail, they quit. I will get off my soap box now.

Namido Jujitsu, White Tiger Hapkido and Tang Soo Do myself. I fully agree. I've been collecting info on bladesmithing while practicing basic blacksmithing techniques. I've made fire pokers, rail road spike split crosses, coat hooks, pry bars and one spike tomahawk. I think you could say I'm taking it slow and easy. No worries. I'm in this for the long haul. I took the baby step advice to heart and decided to make tools and such to improve my hammer control.

I also am a firm believer that every task has a tool and if you substitute a tool you substitute perfection. Just to settle your nerves I'll list my learning tools. iforgeiron.com, anvilfire.com, the $50 Knife Shop, The Complete Bladesmith, The Complete Modern Blacksmith, and Blacksmithing for the Homestead. I want to me the old blacksmith teaching the youth in my area.

Hey Countryboy, if you get a chance come on down to the Ag Museum this weekend. Got a good demonstration working up. Bring some of that cable you got and we'll weld some up, then harden it and check it with a tester.

Hey Countryboy, if you get a chance come on down to the Ag Museum this weekend. Got a good demonstration working up. Bring some of that cable you got and we'll weld some up, then harden it and check it with a tester.

The last time I was there you and Brian welded some cable using a v block type hardy hole tool. Pretty cool technique. I've let my membership lapse and running low on finds so I may have to say thanks but no thanks. I stopped by the Craft Museum a while back. How do I find out when y'all demo there?

Just give me a shout and I will let you know where we are. Come on down to the Ag Museum anyway, we would not turn you away from a monthly meeting for that, you got a grace period. Besides it is held in a public place, you will catch up sooner or later if you get interested, this stuff gets in your blood.