Mosaic Cable Bowie

Dave

That is what I was going to use next. It is the same as the 1084 with the 5% nickel, It gets hard too. I just did not have any on hand. And when I purchased my powder that was not available.
 
A C Richards said:
Lorien


Cable in a can is exactly the way I do it. I used 1084 and added 5% pure nickel powder by weight. Cable, like most found steel can be just about anything. The material I got was from a crane. I has a well drilled and the has to replace the cable. The owner told.me it was extra improved plow steel. This works out to be 1080. I did some welding and hardening tests just to make sure. All was good with this material. Now I have 500 feet of 3/4 inch cable. I will be doing another billet of this soon.
Click to expand...
So the next question is how are the pieces of cable oriented in the the can and how do you forge the billet out once it is all welded up?:D
 
I used a 4x4x6" .125 steel tube. Cut the cable to fit in the box. I needed to weld one end to keep it from unraveling. Then burned them out in the forge to get all the grease and oil out. I stuffed as much in as possible then filled it up with the powder. I vibrated it down and used the press to tamp it in as tight as I could. The ends were welded on using 3/8 thick material. I forge welded the can in the normal manner, reducing the material to 1.5 sq. At this point I patterned it. I did some in a twist and random. This took 1/2 the billet. I also used some for fittings. The other half I did the re-stack. First a 4 way, then a 3 stack. This reduced the cable size and gave me the look I was going for. I will do a WIP the next time I make up a billet in this manner.
 
This material was extremely tough. The band-saw would not cut all the way through. I had to use a cutoff wheel. I tried annealing it several times to no avail. I killed 3 blades and finally gave up.
 
Chuck, Nice to see you turned your idea into a finished knife! Been trying to remember if you took that blade to Tai's or if I just saw a few pieces that you made. I also didn't see the picture this time around.
 
Ray,

I had a blade in the twist pattern and a slice off the end of one of the billets at Tai's. I just finished this blade a couple weeks ago. The pictures are back now as my website and ISP are back up and running.

Thanks again for all the feedback
 
definitely not what i expected! but i'm glad i opened the thread...recycling old cable has been something I've wanted to toy with (but utilizing a mono-edge) and your work really gave me ideas to experiment! brilliant work.
 
very cool and unique, Chuck, its always a good thing when a plan comes together, nice job. :thumbup:

Bill
 
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