Pattern weld/Damascus with small diameter cable

M

Marturios

Joined
Sep 30, 2015
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Hello, all. I've done a lot of reading in this forum and others, but this is my first post. I was hoping the combined experience here will impart some of its wisdom to me.

I'm new to forge welding and thought I would like to try my hand at cable Damascus. Now, ideally, I would be using large diameter cable with larger diameter wires, but I have a large quantity of 1/2" cable that I thought I would start with. My online research has produced mixed results. My main concerns are that the small diameter wires after decarbonization will produce a poor blade, both in terms of strength and pattern.

If any of you have tried this, and could tell me about your results or "fixes" you have found if it is a problem, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
 
I did some like 1/2 cable and man it was tough. We welded as much of it as we could so it wouldn't unfray in the forge. After we got to forge welding temps we had to just barely tap it all around probably 3-4 times to be sure it was solid and welded. It was time consuming and nearly not worth it. The amount of steel produced was near nothing compared to the work and time it took. We actually took like 3 foot of 5 inch strips and used that i think the billet came out to 3/4x1/8x7? There's a lot of loss and a lot of chances for voids. Good luck. If I did it again I would use much larger cable like Stacy suggested and make a much bigger billet
 
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