Guitar string Damascus?

[Will W.]

Hello everyone.

Quick intro story: my brother is a luthier, and a very good guitar player on top of that. Not only does he build them, and play them, but he absolutely loves everything about any type of guitar. So...

My idea is to take a LOT of guitar strings (electric guitar strings, no plating) and twist them into a cable and weld them into cable Damascus, and make a knife from it, for his birthday, or Christmas, perhaps.

I'm just curious if anyone knows what the carbon content would be like in guitar strings. They have to withstand quite a bit of tension and bending during playing, but not enough to warrant an assumption of high carbon content, in my mind. I do have several guitars myself, but no extra strings around to test, sadly (really kicking myself for not saving the cut off ends from last time I re-strung!) 

The main premise of this idea is to make it solely from guitar strings, no additional steel, but I'm just unsure if they will make a decent blade, especially after decarb. 

I searched for the answer to this for a while, but pulled up little info regarding C content.

Thanks in advance. 

[-Quint-]

Very interesting idea. Maybe some nickel wound strings thrown in would make some great contrasts in that pattern....

As far as carbon content, I have no idea but what I would do (especially if you do end up throwing some nickel wound stuff in there) would be San mai. I know, then it wouldn't be 100% made of guitar strings but it would still be very cool and you can guarantee that it would also be very functional by making the core out of a known high carbon steel. 

I have a friend who owns/operates a string manufacturing company, I'm going to ask him what type of steel the plain strings are typically made from. 

[templehound]

Hi Will, I guess that guitar strings maybe have 1% Carbon. Springs in watches, pen nibs and things like that often have 1%C.

(At the end of the thicker strings mostly the tempering color is visible and its yellow-orange)... on D'adario strings it is good visible.

But I think, it will be very difficult to fire weld those thin wires flawless.

You can try with some effort and weld closing it in a small case or box to get the atmosphere out and then with a single first push on a good press or two, three blows on a good dice it might work.

 an acceptable weld only from strings I guess that needs precise preparation, good equipment and above all a bunch of experience.,  maybe adding some steel powder(with different, less carbon content than 1%), to fill up the gaps would help to make the project a success .I would leave them straight and not try to twist them together, they are springy hard, needed to be annealed and it will come out in an uneven twist or whatever.

And keeping the package small it enhances the success to " the cause ".

 

[Will W.]

Quint

The idea with the nickel wound strings occurred to me too. I feel like the pattern would be super interesting. 

I really want to do it purely from strings, and I'll give it a few small scale tests, but if it seems inviable, I'll likely do a San mai like you mentioned. 

If you get ahold of your friend, please, let us know what he says. I do plan on buying some guitar strings to test myself, but times are busy lately.

Templehound

Thanks for the reply, and the educated guess regarding C content.

Going over it in my head, I agree about twisting them. It may cause more trouble, and open up some gaps. 

I realize this is not going to be easy, but I think if would result in a very cool pattern weld in the end, and the knife would have an interesting story behind it. 

[Mark Ling]

I'm thinkin the pattern would be between a cable Damascus pattern, and etched course wrought iron.

                                                                                                                                     Littleblacksmith

[JHCC]

I like the idea of twisting up a cable from the strings, and you could probably make a simple hand-cranked jig to do the twisting. If you anneal the wires first (and as needed during the process), their prior hardness won't be an issue, and you'll be burning off any polymer coating that may be on the strings. 

If I were doing this (and had the requisite skill, which I probably don't), I'd twist up seven strings into a thin cable, repeat six times, and then twist those seven cables into a thicker cable. Repeated six times and with the resulting cables twisted into a single cable, that should give you a cable about 1-1/2" thick, assuming you started with 0.059" strings*. Proceed as for regular cable Damascus.

Decarb could be an issue, but if spark and quench testing doesn't show hardenability, you can always use it for the outside layers of a san mai blade. 

 

*Three hundred and forty-three of them, to be precise. 

[Frosty]

Slick idea but not an easy one. I think I'd bend roll, ? the strings over a couple parallel rods. Say something like 1/4" or a bit larger round. One bent to be held in the vise and the other bent to fit in either the drill press or hand drill. You place the rods parallel at a set distance and simply wrap the strings around the rods. I'm not sure how I'd lock the ends, slip them into the loops around the rods or something so the wraps can't slip. Anneal first for sure!

Keep it fluxed every time you heat it and you don't have to worry about decarb, it can't oxidize out if there is no oxy contact.

Anyway, use the drill to twist the bundle into a yarn. slip it off the twister and repeat. When you have a quantity of yarns slip them all on the twister and twist it the opposite direction and you have a wire rope.

I would sure as heck put in the occasional nickle tig welding wire for color but it may not be necessary. I'd do a few experimental pattern welded bundles to see what guitar string alone looks like. 

Hey, anybody out there work on pianos?

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

I've welded up the wire wound control cables from a lawn mower before; interesting pattern and I had no problem with porosity.  However I did do a san mai with it as I was not sure of the carbon content and it was a thin billet. So billet:file:billet and it's my favorite camp knife now.

[Frosty]

Did you canister weld them? I think I probably would but I don't do pattern welding much so I take the safe route when possible.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

nope no cannister; I took a bunch of pieces 4-6" long and wired them together and CAREFULLY welded them up solid.

[Will W.]

5 hours ago, JHCC said:

If I were doing this (and had the requisite skill, which I probably don't), I'd twist up seven strings into a thin cable, repeat six times, and then twist those seven cables into a thicker cable. Repeated six times and with the resulting cables twisted into a single cable, that should give you a cable about 1-1/2" thick, assuming you started with 0.059" strings*. 

Now that, I hadn't thought about. I was picturing grabbing a bundle and just trying to twist them all lol.

This sounds much more feasible. Thanks for the reply, JHCC, you definitely helped me wrap my head around this in a different way. Im not sure if i have the skill either, but i want to try it. Only problem is...

5 hours ago, JHCC said:

Three hundred and forty-three of them, to be precise. 

Ouch.

Frosty

Thanks for the reply. I've been doing a lot of Damascus lately, and I've learned the sweet spot of how fast to crank my blower to create a neutral fire. Typically, once up to welding heat and removed, my billets have very little or no scale. So that's good news regarding what you said about the decarb. Thanks for the info. 

Thomas

I planned on doing it the same way you did it: very carefully! Lol.

[JHCC]

Of course, a much simpler option (and I think this may be what Frosty is suggesting) is looping the strings between two hooks: one fixed (e.g., in a vise) and the other rotating (I'd chuck it in a hand brace, rather than a power drill). This way, you could get the entire billet twisted up in one operation, like this:

If you take a 35" string and fold it in three, that will give you an untwisted length of just under a foot. If you take 114 of them, that will give you about the same thickness as the 343 of my previous suggestion, and should (I imagine) still give you a decent length after twisting. You might need to put a temporary wrap around the outside of the bundle before twisting, to make sure all the loose ends get captured in the twist.

 

[Frosty]

Yeah, something like that John. They let me use power tools.  I didn't even mention the superiority of chucking the apparatus up in my lathe.

Frosty The Lucky.

[fat pete]

I play guitar and the last 3 strings are the only strings that are not wrapped.... E -B - G are unwound strings the E string usually can be as small as .009... thats pretty slinky... fast lead players will buy something that thin 

I think you will need a whole lotta strings to get a knife out of them.... The steel used could be a stainless type ... but some do rust if you don't play them often... they do have to be picked up by the pickups which are magnetic. There are so many outr there because they are experimenting what all the different alloys sound like ....usually what the wound ones use is the same steel as the unwound as their core.

Hope this helps 

FatPete

[Marc1]

Use bass or double bass strings.

[Jspool]

I'm real interested on seeing how this plays out. I can't imagine that so fine a wire wouldn't get burnt beyond usability during the welding process.  The guitar strings that are steel are so fine that they make the individual strand of 1" 6x19 cable look fat.  I would suggest winding them real tight once they are just red hot, prior to bringing them to welding temp.

[JHCC]

There is a video on YouTube of someone (Green Beetle?) doing a canister Damascus with fishhooks. Not dissimilar.

[Will W.]

Pete

I planned on using mostly the 2nd and 3rd strings (B and G, respectively) maybe with some 5th or 6th strings, nickel wound, thrown in. 1st string is just too thin.

Marc1

That would cut down on the number of strings needed for the cable. And it is still luthier-esque. It's a consideration, anyways. 

Jspool

That's the plan. Further twist once hot. But I plan on bringing the whole thing up to temp VERY slowly, and just tapping the weld into place with a 1 pound hammer a few times before getting a little aggressive with it. All of this is assuming that the strings have a decent C content, of course. 

7 hours ago, JHCC said:

There is a video on YouTube of someone (Green Beetle?) doing a canister Damascus with fishhooks.

 *opens YouTube*

[JHCC]

14 minutes ago, Will W. said:

All of this is assuming that the strings have a decent C content, of course.

That's a Major concern, but it could always be augmented. 

[JHCC]

1 hour ago, Will W. said:

 *opens YouTube*

Here it is.

[Smoggy]

From my guitar string experience mostly I recall the wire being a nickel steel, I suspect Frosty's twist method to be the way to go. As for the lower wound strings they are usually brass or bronze wound (oftimes silvered) the core being the same material as the higher strings but usually thicker. This is likewise on classic guitar strings and I've just recovered the windings of a few old sets myself with a view to possibly reusing with a little copper to make some Mokume Gane. (maybe something you could incorperate into a guard, pommel or pin?)

[Buzzkill]

FWIW, Grainger sells rolls of music wire. Quite a few of the different diameter wires are listed as 1085 steel. 

[JHCC]

30 minutes ago, Buzzkill said:

FWIW, Grainger sells rolls of music wire. Quite a few of the different diameter wires are listed as 1085 steel. 

Very interesting! However, that does mean that if you do a canister damascus, you'll need some other kind of powdered steel or you won't get any pattern contrast -- do they make powdered 15N20?

[Buzzkill]

Good question.  You might not get enough decarb with canister welding.  If this were my project I'd probably use flat stock and put 6 thin high contrast layers in then cut perpendicular to the stack to create the appearance of strings in the blade.  I'd have to do stock removal once I had the slab I wanted though or I know I'd muddy the effect too badly.  The bevel should create the effect of increasing string thickness as you approach the cutting edge.  Not sure though.  It would be an interesting experiment.  Making the blade entirely from strings is a cool idea, but if you can't determine the starting material when it's finished that would kill some of the appeal for me.

[JHCC]

1 minute ago, Buzzkill said:

If this were my project I'd probably use flat stock and put 6 thin high contrast layers in then cut perpendicular to the stack to create the appearance of strings in the blade. 

It would be cool to put some medium-contrast steel in the thicker layers to represent frets.