ok I work around alot of Cranes and I was wondering if the Wire Rope would be good for Laminating. I am kinda New at this. Just kinda Curious

If by forging into a type of Damascus, yes. It can be tricky to work but with a little practice you can make some nice stuff.

search on "Cable damascus", watch out for a LOT of hits!

When making blades from the stuff what alloy the cable is makes a difference. You also don't want lead or plastic interior lays in it.

Welcome aboard Curious glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in your header you might be pleasantly surprised to discover how many folk on IFI live within visiting distance.

There is a lot of neat things you can do with wire rope avoid galvanized as well.

Frosty The Lucky.

Yup cable "damascus". I love using it. Get yourself some borax. Heat the cable and foge the ends to eitther square or rectangular and weld them. ( forge weld them with Borax) heat them again and untwist and clean out some of the gunk if it is used cable, then flux the inside well and close it back up by re-twisting. Heat it to welding heat slowly and continue to twist it tighter and if it is at welding heat you will feel it lock up as you twist it tighter. The center is then welded and you can go ahead and forge down and weld the outside. I have some 1" with some pretty heavy strands probably 16 to 14 gauge and it makes beautiful axes.

On the idea of cable...many types of cable is center cored with a fiber material that is not metal! We used tousands of feet of that stuff on draglines waaay back when I was much younger. 6x19 IPWR was 6 seperate rolls of 19 strands Improved Wire Rope. As I understand it is a high quality material for blade and stuff. Many of my friends use cable to make cable knives so that is in itself a demascus and pattern-welded material. It makes a neat handle for many to hold onto but using a cable much larger than 1 inch diameter makes a very heavy knife....maybe it should be a machete!


carry on