Cutting coax cable

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Vivi

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I was looking for things to test the thin edge of my UKPK on, to see what would damage it and how much. It had handled chopping and batoning wood and cutting through power cables fine, so I didn't expect this much damage from coaxial cable. I tried out other knives, each with a much thicker edge and most with a tougher steel. Many of the knives received roughly the same amount of damage, but the Spyderco Mule hardly looked touched. The knives were hammered through the cable with a wooden baton. The large chip in the UKPK is from the first attempt where no baton was used and I tried to use normal cutting technique. Edge geometry didn't seem to influence the results as much as I expected.


UK Pen Knife (S30V)


Kabar TDI (AUS8)



Tenacious (8Cr13MoV)



Mule (51200)



CRKT (AUS6)

 
So you varied the edge angle and the steel simultaneously?
If you varied both simultaneously, you do not know very much except that all the blades got dings in them.

Or did you rebevel the edge of a single blade to try a single steel with different edge angles? And if so, what angles did you try?

At least they look better than your 110 did. :D
 
Yeah that would surprise me too. Coax is just aluminum or tinned copper braid with a copper center conductor. With a clean push cut/baton hit it you'd think it would cleave right through without issue. Did they ever make coax with a steel core? I've really abused the edge on some knives trimming flashing off steel pipes (and not too gentle about it either) and not had them significantly dulled or damaged.
 
The inner strand of a coax sometimes aren't copper. I've seen anything from silver coated copper to aluminum to (if your contractor really tries to cheat you) copper-washed iron :mad:. You should double-check the core strand to make sure.
 
znode said:
The inner strand of a coax sometimes aren't copper. I've seen anything from silver coated copper to aluminum to (if your contractor really tries to cheat you) copper-washed iron :mad:. You should double-check the core strand to make sure.
Click to expand...

This cable was copper on the outside of the core and something silver colored in the middle.
 
If you are using RG6 or RG6 quad of a well known brand(not radio shack) the center copper is not copper its a nickel steel aloy with a copper coating. There are some brands that still use copper but from your pictures I would say you didn't get that lucky. I am really impressed by the mule, I just got mine back(it got handle's and sheath) and have not had the chance to use it yet.
 
I didn't expect the results to be that bad! The 52100 did pretty impressive, I suppose. Were any of these knives at 40º or higher edge angles?

Looks like you're developing some nice patina on the 52100.
 
Carrot, I'm not sure how to measure edge angles. The edges, in order from thin to thick, are UKPK, Tenacious, CRKT, Mule, TDI; judging by eye.

I'm going to thin out the Mule some and see how it does. It had a patina going from cutting a pizza, then I soaked a towel in apple cider and wrapped the mule to see what would happen, which resulted in the weird pattern you see.

krew6.jpg
 
What did you have the coax cable laying on when you batoned it? I'll bet if you put it on a hard surface and batoned on that, you'd have a lot less damage. If you batoned with a hammer (gently), you'd have less damage still.
 
sodak said:
What did you have the coax cable laying on when you batoned it? I'll bet if you put it on a hard surface and batoned on that, you'd have a lot less damage. If you batoned with a hammer (gently), you'd have less damage still.
Click to expand...

An inch thick piece of very hard plastic, like a thicker, tougher version of a kitchen cutting board. I could try more gentle, controlled taps with a hammer and see how that works.

EDIT: Tried that and there was less damage. The UKPK was moving around some when I hit it (Need a third hand) so it looks worse than it should. The CRKT did well. I hammered the Mule blade into the CRKT and the CRKT got a few cuts straight into the blade while the Mule seemed to take light impacting on the very edge and no other detectable damage. Much more dramatic difference than the UKPK and SAK hammered together. Pictures will be posted shortly.

Excuse the out of focus photos. I spent about 20 minutes trying to get them in focus and it's just not going to happen with this camera.






 
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Sounds right. The less that the coax "gives", the less damage you should see. I learned that from Cliff...
 
Seems to be the case with most abusive cutting. I know that if you try to cut those twisty ties that hold items in their package, it's easy to at least take the edge off your knife if you just slice it unsupported. If you lay on it something hard and press cut it shouldn't damage the blade.
 
yup, coming from a cable installer by trade. most new coax in use (rg6, standard in house cable and less than 200foot drop outside cable) is steel center conductor with thin copper jacket, then diaelectric sheilding, steel brading, then possibly foil, then outer jacket.

old rg59 may be solid copper center, but not much of that around.

now you could use RG11, which has a center conductor about twice as thick.


I cut my cable with either my klein linemans pliers, or (much more often) my 8" diagonal cutters. I also use the wire cutter on my multipliers, and it's damaged those a bit, but they still cut great. I just sharpened up the diag cutters the other day with a diamond sharpener a bit, helped a little. :)
 
The wire cutters on my Leatherman Squirt certainly make a more suitable tool for this work.

Forgot to post the picture I took of the cable but it's as ousnas described, without foil.
 
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