Steel cable knife blades

[deernhog]

I have been given a knife to build a sheath for. I looked it over and it is made from a piece of steel cable and the handle is the cable that has been welded on the end. The steel feels good and looks pretty good but the blade has been terribly abused like someone used it for a screw driver/pry bar. How good are these blades made from cable. I don't like the handle because it flexes but the blade is interesting. What would it take to forge one of these since I have limited forging tools other than a steel container rigged with a blow dryer (don't laugh it has worked for shaping iron)

[SDS-GEN]

I have heard, but have no real experience, that steel cable isn't very good for making knife blades.  Something about different hardnesses of steel in the same cable make soft spots in the blade.

[mechanic]

The cable can make a good blade, but most don't go to the trouble to finish the job.  First, you have to heat and meticulously clean it.  Then you' ve got to flux it with anhydrous borax mixed with fine iron filings.  Then you heat until it throws sparks (white heat), and forge weld it on the anvil.  Then you clean, flux, and fold, and repeat.  At least 6 - 8 folds to meld the metal and eliminate soft spots mentioned in the post.  All in all, its easier to make damascus other ways, but if a guy is persistent, he can make a good blade with a cable.  Most just use step one and quit.

[tn_junk]

I have made a few Cable Damascus blades. Like mechanic said, it takes a lot of work to get a final product that is any good. And if you don't have the right kind of cable (high tensile), you will never get the hardness you need. For someone just getting into making their own damascus blades, it's a good learning experience, and will wear your hammer arm out.

alan

[deernhog]

What kind of cable is best since I will probably just use scrap of some kind for starters. Does oil field cable have what it takes to make one. I can get a lot of that that has been scrapped from the million and one rigs that are going around here.

[mechanic]

What kind of cable is best since I will probably just use scrap of some kind for starters. Does oil field cable have what it takes to make one. I can get a lot of that that has been scrapped from the million and one rigs that are going around here.

That will be good cable most likely, but dirty cable is a pain.  You can't weld dirty metal.  If you really want to get a start, go somewhere where they sell cable and buy a few feet.  Not that expensive.  Then all you will have is a little oil to burn off.  The rust and foreign debris can be a pain and mess up a job.

Just use high heat and flux.  When the metal is hot enough to throw off sparks, it hot enough to weld.

Ben

[Don Krag]

I use cable quite often when teaching basic forge welding. Tac-weld the ends and you don't have to worry much about layers delaminating and such and you can focus more on the actual welding process.

There's lots of different cable configurations and steel types. Double improved plow-share cable is what you want. I have no idea what oil-field cable is made from.

Here's a blade I posted a while back made from some scrapyard cable (some sort of crane/hoist). It turned out to be an odd configuration and quite high in hardenability. After etching, it was almost all black similar to high manganese steels. The light colored streaks close to the spine and then down about half way are the center wires that were lower carbon (higher carbon tends to etch darker while low carbon etches lighter after hardening).

This was some of the cruddiest cable I've ever used. I pulled it apart into it's main wire groups/bundles (this had seven wraped around one) and then boil them in a TSP/water solution a couple times. Then you just have to use a high heat and lots of flux. New stuff works much better, but you can still get good results with the cruddy stuff. This was 2" dia cable and a royal pain to forge down and draw out by hand!!!

As for cutting performance, it makes a serviceable knife like this and is good for learning welding. This one seems to hold an edge quite a bit better than most I've done from cable, but not knowing the exact composition of the steel really limits the heat treating.