freeman Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 A couple months ago a friend stopped by on his way to the scrap yard and dropped off 12 feet of high carbon braided steel cable. He told me I was welcome to it if I welded it up and made him something out of "damascus". I thanked him, tossed the cable into my small (but growing) treasure trove (aka pile of rusting scrap) and promptly forgot about it. This evening I was out at the forge having trouble focusing on a large project I've got in the works so I decided to toss a chunk of the cable in the fire to see if I could weld it up. I stacked my fire like I normally do for a forge weld, brought the piece up to a medium red, doused it in borax, then slowly brought it up to welding temps, turning the stock every 5-10 seconds or so. First few hits where like beating a wonton with a rubber mallet, stuff spraying all over the place and the cable flopping around like crazy. Somewhere around the fifth or sixth hit it just all came together and it was like I was striking a solid billet. Repeated this process six or seven times to produce a 1' x 5/8 square bar. Once that was done I forged the bar into a crude knife shape then did a grind on the blade with my bench grinder and a file before polishing it up. The finished project is about the most embarrassing excuse for a knife I've seen to date, but I figured what they hey and tossed it into a bath of 10 parts vinegar and 2 parts diet mountain dew (couldn't hurt, right?) with some table salt thrown in for grins. If it etches ok I might post some pics for folks to laugh at. Mostly I just wanted to share my findings so far from this evening's experiment. Those being:Forge welding braided steel cable is easier than doing a dropped tongs weld. Everything's more or less in place and if you ignore the initial trainwreck when you first start hitting it it'll settle down and weld quickly. Gloves are a must for welding this stuff. It's impossible to overstate how much stuff sprays all over the place when you first start welding it. Muriatic acid is questionable as an etchant. The fumes are obnoxious and it cuts so fast it seems like detail is lost. Neutralizing a 2/3 of a pint glass of muriatic acid with a box of baking soda on one of your work benches is *really* stupid. It makes even more obnoxious fumes and a huge mess. I am a poor bladesmith. So who else has welded up cable damascus and does anyone know of uses for it that don't involve cutlery? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyGeorge Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 Freeman, I have done a few cable blades. Other than that I don't know of other projects, right off. Except to make your billet and use it for something else,(ie. S-hooks, Small screw driver, etc.). Mainly, I just wanted to jump in here and thank you for the laugh. That was quite a description of welding up cable, albeit pretty accurate. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Chambers Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 Just a quick note, muriatic acid can dilute with water, when I use it to remove large chunks of rust or to give a rapid patina I dump what I use into a 5gal bucket then hose the bucket, or use it to etch clean your driveway then hose again! As for other uses I have seen somewhere a dragon/snake designed with that pattern weld to use in an almost scale like shape. Bladesmithing just like horseshoeing or gate building or any other branch of smithing takes its time to grow and hone so I wouldnt say you're a poor bladesmith you just didn't practice enough yet heheh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 IF you look in the blade section to this forum ( Yeah we have more than just general topics section!) you can see many examples of cable, Muratic is a good etchant, but not at the 30% concentrate from the bottle. read up more. Welcome to the dark side young Jedi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 freeman that made me laugh too! i will certainly try that - your post was encouraging and vivid - thats what i like! thanks for that. i bet your blade rocks - it must be a momentous blade if only as part of your journey as bladesmith - look forward to seeing it. ps i have never made a blade and am easily impressed... :rolleyes: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francis Trez Cole Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 one thing I do is every time I take the cable out of the fire I twist it tight. Then continue to lightly tap it until it gets all the air pockets out then I forge weld it. Jim Hrisoulas's book the blade smith and master blade smith have great section on cable Damascus. The next thing is take 5 length of cable and weld them together then is when it gets fun. I anneal the blade about 3 to 4 times. I use ferric chloride for etching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenbeast Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 This has come at just the right time, just found 6' of 7 strand cable, might give it a go tomorrow! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeman Posted August 28, 2011 Author Share Posted August 28, 2011 This has come at just the right time, just found 6' of 7 strand cable, might give it a go tomorrow! Awesome, let us know how it turns out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LDW Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 I have welded a lot of cable, I have found if you use a V-block it welds the easiest. If you do not have one you can hammer it into the step of the anvil, this way you will be hammering it on three sides with every blow. I need to make a knife for an order now. When I make it I will take some pics of the process I came up with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenbeast Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 I have welded a lot of cable, I have found if you use a V-block it welds the easiest. If you do not have one you can hammer it into the step of the anvil, this way you will be hammering it on three sides with every blow. I need to make a knife for an order now. When I make it I will take some pics of the process I came up with. good idea! i can't give it a go today because my borax isn't where i am, but next time... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2703adam Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 I just had my first cable adventure about a month and a half ago. You can see my thread here:http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/22884-cable-damascus/ And yes, it was quite an adventure.... For the etching I used one part Ferric Chloride with four parts water. -Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Turley Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 Don't want to be too technical, but isn't cable generic, and wire rope specific? I had a cable once that was galvanized. I unstranded it and it had a rubber core inside. I think it was the kind used as a guy on telephone poles. I've done a little of the rope welding. A knife maker showed me the tight twist at heat that Francis Trez talked about. We used the vise and flat jawed vise grips. It is done before welding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KYBOY Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 We have done a lot of cable welding..We use the half round swage in our swage block to weld it in..Works much better than a flat surface or even the anvil step. You get pressure on all sides of the cable in a round swage.. A half round swage isnt hard to make and is well worth the time if your gonna weld much cable...Cable knives with the rope handle intact sell pretty good at the craft fairs.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LDW Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 I took a few pics, I had left my camera at home so I just used my phone. Its not that great, I only took pics of the end of the handle when I was welding that up because I got so involved in forging I forgot to take pics. KYBOY I have never used a half round swage, but it is pretty easy to weld up with a v-block, or step of the anvil. I cannot imagine it being "much better" than an anvil step. I can forge one of these knives from start to finish in 40 minutes, including starting the fire. Heres the pics I took. https://picasaweb.google.com/wynnhood/CableKmife8292011# Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyGeorge Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 Now that is cool. I never tried leaving the end of the cable for the handle. The ball on the end gave it a very nice finished touch. Thanks for the idea. That is a neat looking knife. Thank you for sharing the pics with us. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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