3/4" crane cable

trentu

trentu

Joined
Mar 2, 2006
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Just picked up 2 large spools of 3/4" crane cable. Does this make pretty good damascus by itself once hammer welded into a slab? Thought I would give it a try.
 
I am by no means an expert at forging cable. I have done several and this is my understanding of what to look for. There is a regular grade of wire rope aka improved plow steel or IPC. Also a premium, aka extra improved plow steel or xip & eip. Last is heavy duty premium aka extra-extra improved plow steel or xxip & eeip. I believe these are listed in increasing amounts of carbon content. You should check to make sure there is not a core of rope,kevlar,spectre or whatever it is they use. If there is I'm sure you already know that you should take it out before attempting to forge. That is about all I can help you with trentu. Hope it helped a bit.
 
Glad I asked. I just thought cable was cable. Thanks for all the great advice David.
 
I should add that I'm sure there are many other grades of cable available. These are the ones most commonly used around BF from what I have gathered.
 
First make sure the core is steel-otherwise you will have to remove it. IPC cable is 1084 and works fine.

Make sure it is welded solid into a round bar before you start to shape it. First twist it as tight as you can getit at welding temperature. Then tap tap it into the round bar, so that the strands are welded. After that you forge like any other round bar.

Sounds so simple...have fun.
 
Went out and looked at it. All steel. Maintenance guy said it is very high strength cable. I better find plenty of flux for this project.
 
good luck....I've not done too great yet with my attempts. I'm thinking that I don't forge/reduce it enough as I round it..... I get an occasional line running in a twist pattern....sometimes lots of them....sometimes just one...
 
I need to find a suply of cable myself >_< There's some at a scrap yard near me, but 'no picking' there =( Liability issues and all, it's untouchable /cry
 
Justin.Mercier said:
I need to find a suply of cable myself >_< There's some at a scrap yard near me, but 'no picking' there =( Liability issues and all, it's untouchable /cry
Click to expand...
Justin some Saturday we can go to the junkyard down here they always have some. The fishing trawlers and draggers use cables for thier nets.
:thumbup:
 
Last Feb I was picking up some large cable from offshore suppliers and did some checking on crane cable. One major company quit using high carbon cable because they were having problems with it. Sorry, I can't remember the problem. So I stuck with known cable from 2 large companies.

Bottom line, heat a piece of the cable up to non magnetic and quench it. Give it a few minutes, take it to the anvil, and hit it with a hammer. If it shatters, it's the good stuff. If ithe strands bend and ddon't break, pitch it. That simple test will save you some time amd grief.

Now I just have to figure out how short to cut 2 1/4" diameter cable to get a workable billet. I wanted something less pedestrian than our local logging cable.

Gene
 
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