Cable pattern welded blade start

Hi Guys,

Just an update.

I did a raw material swap with a nice bloke in America, I gave him a couple of Australian burls, red malee and some coolibar, and in return I got some steel cable.

For some reason I'm having difficulty sourcing the metal here in Oz.

Anyway I managed to weld the first cable into a nice round rod, give it a solid twist, bent it over and welded it in place, and twisted it once more, and have started to form that into a rod again.

Now I don't have much experience with cable welding, so I'm just having a go, and it may turn out like a steaming pile.

I was going to do more, but I got my glove a little too close to the dragons breath and ended up with a huge blister on my knuckle, of course the thing filled with fluid an puffed up to a point where it was difficult to bend my finger (a pin fixed that), but I digress, I'm going to finish the blade tomorrow.

Cable is really nice to work with, and it has made me want to find a supplier in Australia :-)

Regards Charles

Reply to
Chilla
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Look for a crane repair company. They frequently have to dispose of wire rope from crane re-reeving jobs.

Your cable "damascus" billet should come out looking like a mosaic billet. Of course, you can handle it like any other pattern welded billet and twist, ladder, etc. it too.

I've been wondering how a layup billet would look if I did a pineapple twist on it for the last operation before the final drawing out.

Reply to
John Husvar

Don't rework the stuff too much or it all blends together into a solid mass with no definition of the pattern. That was the mistake I made with the first bit of cable I welded. I found the best pattern from cable was got by simply welding it solid, forming a bar, or forging rough to shape, then grinding out the blade.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Reply to
Trevor Jones

And the scrap yard guys pay less for it than other steels because it's such a pain to work with.

And what Trevor said, sometimes the knife handle is "unmolested" cable.

Ok that's all I friggin know about it. :/

Alvin in AZ

Reply to
alvinj

Thanks Trevor, I though that might happen, so I didn't manipulate the cable too much.

The next project is to turn two chain saw blades into knives ;-)

Regards Charles

Reply to
Chilla

Chilla wrote:

You're gonna love it. Here's a few tips for working cable... there's no such thing as too much flux. Keep fluxing it until it looks dipped in liquid glass. Starting with raw cable, warm it up to dull red then grab the end in a vise and the other end with a pipe wrench and spring it open and whack it with a hammer to knock loose all the crud trapped around the central strand, then wind it up again while it's still hot. Once it cools down to black it will take a set at the new tightness. Then flux the crap out of it. Wind it up tight as you can, as cable tries to unwind during the first pass at heat. When you fold it, don't cut it with a hot cut; just make yourself a hardie tool out of angle iron V-up and use a peen hammer to drive it down into the V to start the fold. You can beat cable out too thin; try to keep the thickness during welding over 1/4 inch so you don't run into the surface area to volume trap and lose heat too quickly. I have a die set that stops at .300" to avoid this for the powerhammer. Cable gets reallllly stiff after a couple of folds, like a bias ply tire. Weld the ends over into a lump before starting, if the cutting torch didn't take care of this when you cut it to length. A quick tap with the arc welder will do. This helps a lot with unwinding and loose strands. Two or three folds is all you need to develop the pattern unless you take steps to control carbon migration, like inserting strips of nickel 300 into the stack. Most cable here in the US is usually SAE1095 steel. Water or oil quench from 1600 degrees. The pattern won't show until you quench it, but it's always a magic moment. It's never the same twice. Billet works like butter at medium orange, tools easily, will take a mirror finish, holds a razor edge. Try the scrapyard for supplies. Usually anything over an inch and a half diameter is good. I got tons of it from old oil drilling rigs, elevators are good too, as cable for them is a life-limited part and it gets changed out on a schedule.

Happy Whacking

Charly

Reply to
Charly the Bastard

Chilla,

Hey that other stuff sounded cool. Wanna trade with me? Whaddya want.?

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew Molinaro

Hi Andrew,

Sure a trade is cool :-) Which country do you live in?

It's extremely hard wood though and you will be cursing me :-)

I tell you what, I can send you some pictures of what the wood looks like and, if you like it, we'll go from there.

Is that email address a "real" one or will it bounce?

Regards Charles

Andrew Mol> Chilla,

Reply to
Chilla

I'm that guy with the business in the USA...and yes, my email is snipped-for-privacy@artisansoftheanvil.com

Reply to
Andrew Molinaro

GDay Chilla, we did cable at my recent course. They got it from a cable supplier, look in the yellow pages. They just went in and got a couple of meters of the cheapest stuff they had that was over an inch in diameter, it was pretty cheap. Be warned it will shrink a lot when you weld it up. i'd get inch and a half or larger. We have a couple suppliers here in Brisbane if you can't find one in Sydney.

I did some work at a concrete fab place, you know the pre-stressed wall and floor panels. This has cable in it, and its Hi-tensile too boot. I got some out of their scrapbin. I've been planning to wind this into standard cable. You know unwind the standard stuff and wind in about a third to half of the hi-tensile stuff.

On welding it, I like to use the step of the anvil, but some of the others in the course used V and U bottom swedges.

Have fun, Rusty_iron

P.S. don't take any of his Dodgy burls :-), they are probably all moth eaten ;-) :-D

Reply to
Rusty_iron

Hi Rusty,

Do you have a name I can contact, for some reason I'm just not having any luck down south.

If I get one contact in any state, I can usually get local contacts :-)

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elder berries! I throw burls in your general direction :-D

Have you used burls Rusty? I'm trying to get some tips on how to shape the mothers, bloody hard wood, but definitely worth the effort.

I picked up a scrap burl and made a bowl out of it, mind you I had to make a gouge to cut it :-( Looks nice now though :-)

Regards Charles

Rusty_ir> GDay Chilla,

Reply to
Chilla

People in Oz. :)

Don't know nothing about woodworking gouges but do know how to shape a knife handle from burl and other hardwoods like it's balsa or something. :)

"little hand grinder sportin a brand new sanding disk!"

With a little bit of care a guy can grind down "end grain" on hard woods without scourcing it. Brand new sanding disk, ok? :/ And the grit doesn't seem to make much difference, 36 grit is a good one, tried some 16 grit and that didn't work out so good... don't know why... crummier brand of sanding disk? Too coarse?

I bought a pile of New Old Stock Norton sanding disks really cheap one day at an industrial supply place... they were all curled up.

They are laying out in the shop flat as anything right now and stay flat too when I get one out from under all that weight I got settin on 'em. ;)

Alvin in AZ

Reply to
alvinj

Reply to
alvinj

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