First attempt

[Biker Bo]

Hey all. This is my first attempt at forge welding. It was an old chocker cable and thanks to information on this and other sites I think it came pretty good. I made my forge using a frosty t burner .it took a while but I finally got it to 1960°  at 13 PSI. Any can't wait to start making a knife out of it . Thanks for all the great information .

[Biker Bo]

Any advice from what you see. Did I hammer it too much ? 

Thanks .

[jmccustomknives]

Really you want the billet to not show any signs it was a piece of cable unless you want a live edge spine.  Welding cable does take practice but it isn't hard.  You'll know how well you did when you grind the edge in and heat treat it.

[Biker Bo]

Thanks . I don't think I had enough heat. I need to build another T Burner to add to the forge. 

[Dave51B]

18 hours ago, Biker Bo said:

Any advice from what you see. Did I hammer it too much ? 

Thanks .

 My advice would be shoes and long pants during your next forging session. Or a least some heat resistant nail polish.    he he      Dave 

[WmHorus]

You can Consolidate the bar more and make it more like a billet that will take more heats and alot more hammering to draw the bar out. Unless you are using part of that barstock as a handle in that form and consolidate part of it as the blade.

[Biker Bo]

I thought about cutting and folding it after I grind all the decarb off .

I've read that you begin to lose the detail of the cable if fold it . 

The bar stock is not part of knife .  If  I shorten my forge I might be able to get to 2300 ° . I will need to remove the square stock handle and use my tongs 

This has been a learning  experience and a lot of fun. 

I started making knives in about 83 but it was all stock removal and then send then in for H.T. .

Thanks to net I've found a lot of information on forging . Have to say that heat treating my own and learning to forge has brought out a new passion for knife making. 

Not liking the toenail polish.......  . Guess I need something more blacksmity 

I have some band mill blade thats from a sawmill. It's 15n20 and ,072  . If I stack a couple of pieces in between and I can 2300° it might look pretty good. 

[WmHorus]

Eventually after many folds it will become a homogenized bar, I did 2 such cut and folds or was it 3 and ended up with a wood grain type pattern in the cable. But yea the cable should be real clean to do it.