I was looking thru some utube vids and saw some folks making damascus from steel cable. :thinking: My question is this able to be hardened enough for a straight razor? If so are there any vids or threads here about it?
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I was looking thru some utube vids and saw some folks making damascus from steel cable. :thinking: My question is this able to be hardened enough for a straight razor? If so are there any vids or threads here about it?
I have seen it made in a youtube video. I really don't know.
It would need more than 0.6% carbon at the least.
A couple of weeks ago I took a knifemaking class from a local maker who makes knives from cable damascus. So I guess it is possible, I don't have any specifics on what the steel was though.
My day job involves this kind of material, lifting slings and such, from what I can find, it looks as though the cable is made from this:
AISI 1074 is a Standard grade Carbon Steel. It is composed of (in weight percentage) 0.70-0.80% Carbon (C), 0.50-0.80% Manganese (Mn), 0.04%(max) Phosphorus (P), 0.05%(max) Sulfur (S), and the base metal Iron (Fe). Other designations of AISI 1074 carbon steel include UNS G10740 and AISI 1074
The basic answer is yes. Most cable has to be of sufficient quality that it will make good blades. But the steels can vary so you have to know the specs of what you have, or be willing to make a bunch of test blades to prove its performance for yourself.
That being said, some cable makes great knives and patterns well, some makes great knives and won't pattern well. Some patterns better before, OR after heat treatment. You may not know any of these behaviors until after the blade has gone past a critical (where you could have saved yourself time and money backtracking) process point. I have also seen some cable that won't harden.
Double check and validate the provenance of any cable first. Even so, you may have to experiment. Your welding technique should be flawless as cable can be fickle. Or, weld cable skins to a high carbon steel core.
I expect that it all depends on the quality of the cable. There's some stuff at the local diy that would probably fail to harden . However, if the Smith knows what he is doing, I expect the cable itself would be ok
That said, It might be fun to give it a try. Cable is cheap :)
Here's an old thread about this topic
http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...wire-rope.html
The common plain carbon steel wire rope is what we would call 10xx steel. They call it "plow" grade steel. Plow steel is 1055. Improved plow is 1065. Extra improved plow, the most common grade you are likely to see, is 1075. Extra,extra improved plow is like 1084. Supposedly, you can see some wire rope where the outer strands are extra improved and the core is extra, extra improved. You also see some cable with a synthetic strand core that must be removed if you want to forge it.
If you are looking to use cable because it looks cool and you find the process interesting, go for it. If you are looking to do it as a first forge welding project because it is cheap and easy, then RUN AWAY!! Lol.
A knifemaker friend of mine got hold of a piece of bridge cable about 15 years ago. About 2in thick, even a single foot length makes a heap of blades!
Found this video about the wire cable forging. Comments ??
https://youtu.be/WOR_-glrz7U
I use different heat and tools but the main piece of great advice comes when he says "twist" it tighter. That alone can bring the gaps between the wires to near minimal and I've had cable weld during the twist. The billet will come out with a lot less flaws. It squeezes the crud out from the center rather than trapping stuff inside the bar.
It has been a while and can't remember the details but they recabled some elevators at work. I mentioned this to one of the workers. He said that there was something added to the center of the cables for lubrication if I remember right and he thought it might add some weird impurities. I never looked into it beyond that.
Usually, borax is used for fluxing metal.
It is something that is cheap and easily available, white powdery substance.
You apply it with a spoon or sprinkle it on top, and it melts onto and in between the metal parts.
It prevents oxidation because it leaves a film, and it also dissolves scale and other crud.
If you then hammer (or twist or whatever), the flux is squeezed out along with the impurities.
This way, chances of successfully forge welding different parts together with a clean weld is a lot higher.
When you use flux, you also learn very quickly not to hammer hard until the welds have taken hold. The initial hammer blows I do (by hand) are quarter strength. This reduces the chances of displacing the different pieces, and increases the odds of making a nice clean and flat weld. And also important: if there is still flux in between the separate parts, it will be extremely hot (welding temperature) and still liquid. If you hammer real hard from the get go, that stuff comes squirting out in God knows which direction. Es no Bueno. :)
I would have said borax. I use anhydrous borax, but the washing soap will work. The video specifically states boric acid. The demonstrator implies that the acid "cleans" the steel, implying that it's a chemical process. A great friend of mine, a master smith, swore by boric acid as a portion of his flux, but his recipe was maybe at the largest portion only 25%.
Boric acid is a salt of borax and at the temperatures we are discussing, it probably breaks down pretty quickly into the borax component that does what Bruno describes. It's a oxidation preventer, and lowers the melting point of scale allowing the liquidus layer to form that is needed for welding. Intimate close contact between parts (hence the twisting - close the gaps) and confidence are the remaining needed components of the process.
The flux may carry away some slags as well as potentially good material. It makes a beautiful dangerous spray and while the smith might not think much of it, a watching crowd can get real excited. Interested types are likely to be leaning into the spray, everyone else has fled or gets burned on the backside. ;)
Thank you both Bruno and Mike, Now I have a "little knowledge." I hear this can be dangerous, LITTLE KNOWLEDGE that is.
:hmmm:
I love those videos. Reminds me of kamisori being made of anchor chains.
Regular 20 Mule Team Borax will work, but you use a bit more. You can dry it out. For regular damascus made from flat pieces of steel, you can actually use kerosene or some other similar liquid on a COLD stack of clean steel as "flux" for your initial wells. I would be hesitant to use it on cabe as you need to do a lot of "cleaning" of the typical cable when you are forge welding it in addition to getting rid of the scale. +1 about what Mr. Blue said about twisting. Also remember that the pattern in cable damascus does not come from dissimilar metals like nickel bearing steels like 15N20 or L6 and the dark etching higher manganese steels like 1084 or O2 that we would typically use in our pattern welded steel. It comes from decarburizing the outer skin of the individual wires within the bundle.
Paco...planning for the future? :)
Just read the other day on the Aussie Blade Forum a post from very experienced forger that you only need the borax flux when using a coal or open fire forge, and it is not required when using a gas forge as the LPG/propane only needs oxygen to burn and will get if from anywhere, which since the rust is just Oxide the lpg forge will actually use the rust as an oxygen source also negating the use of the borax
This will also prolong the life of the forge as the borax is very acidic.
Hope other,here can benefit from this also
All other things aside, I would not use kerosene, because having kerosene near forge fire is not the safest thing.
That is a valid consideration. However, since the borax also helps improve contact between layers, it certainly helps.
Most smiths I have talked with use borax even in gas powered forges.
It is true that the acid eats away the lining eventually, but lining isn't terribly expensive and this is a very slow process.
I use charcoal, and tbh, my lining has a finite life to begin with :)
Charcoal fires burn like the fires of mordor in the fire pit. That is part of the challenge of working with charcoal: positioning the steel at the correct place for what you want to do. It is terribly easy to burn good steel to a crisp in a charcoal fire.
I wouldn't. But if you'd use kerosene as a flux, then
a) it has to be stored somewhere, and chances are people would keep it near the place where they use it, and
b) if you use it as flux, sooner or later it has to go in the fire. It will flare up, and depending on the ambient temperature and the time it spent outgassing, flare up big. A guy I know used gasoline to light a fire, but it was very hot that day, and in the minute that he spent closing the canister and putting it away, so much had evaporated that when he lit it, his legs got 3d degree burns.
Flux is also often applied multiple times during the forging process, which would make it impractical to store it a long way from the forge, and you'd have to allow the materials to cool off significantly each time in order to make it safe to apply kerosene again. Given that you can only conveniently use kerosene on the initial weld, and you'd have to use something like borax on successive heats, there's no reason why you wouldn't use borax to begin with.
It's safer, easier, and more convenient to work with because it can be kept in an open container close to the fire, and sprinkled on top when you stop hammering and right before putting it in the fire.
I know a fellow who is probably the original source of the kerosene story. But, that information, like so much information in bladesmithing, is subject to drifting over time. He keeps his bare metals in liquid storage to prevent them from rusting, not as flux. But, there are also those who work in canned powdered metal patterns and they might use it to burn out all the oxygen in a closed can weld. I'll see him tomorrow and ask him. I'm certain Daryl will get a good laugh to hear how people believe things.
It would burn off too quickly to work well as flux. But, there are those old guys again, who injected liquid BTUs into forges looking for more heat, and it will make a controlled fire improve to a veritable hell to stand near.
I have seen, and done, flux-less welds. When forge and operator conditions are right, it works. When I use flux it tends to be like salting for flavor, just enough to get the job right, not drowning the steel. It does degrade refractories.
If there are any good stories about flux and kerosene that are new to me, I'll share them here.
Attachment 203334
This puzzle may have been posted before. If so, I'm guilty of a little pride. Please forgive me. A friend of mine and I worked out this billet as a follow-on project to one Daryl showed us a couple years ago. Speaking of low flux welds and projects that are difficult, frankly, working cable is easier. Eventually we'll get to stacking, but we are both quite pleased to simply get here and call it good for now.
As I previously stated, kerosene and other hydrocarbon solutions used as "flux" are applied ONCE to a cold stack for the initial welding process. The purpose of this is to decrease the chanced of a cold shut caused by flux and scale trapped inside the stack. From what i have been told, it prevents scaling by converting into a micro thin layer of carbon when burned which coats the exposed surfaces of the steel and shields them from oxygen. Additional fluxing to seal up the edges, etc., after the billet is hot and has been welded initially are done with borax, etc. What I can tell you from personal experience is that it works very well.
Gasoline and kerosene are different substances with different properties. The flashpoint of kerosene, which is the point where it starts to vaporize and the vapor can be ignited is between 38C for he purest forms like JetA/JP-1 up to 72C for the cruder stuff. For gasoline, that flash point is -43C. That sis why kerosene can be used as lamp or heater fuel.
Mike, IIRC, I was told about using kerosene and other "hydrocarbon fluids" as "flux" by guys like Fred Rowe ( who used tool cleaning solvent from Tractor Supply) , Ron Newton, the late John White, JW Randall, John Perry, Kyle Royer and Don Hanson(kerosene), Chris Marks (who I believe used #2 diesel) Don Hanson was the guy who told me about using the borax flux for the second pass for the edges. As you said, it is not really a flux and requires he steel to be ground clean, but I do that anyway. Most of he guys that I learned this from describe it as kind of "almost dry" welding as opposed to the "true" dry welding like you get from a sealed cannister, HT foil wrap or sealing up the billet by TIG or MIG welding all of the seams. John White was the first guy that I knew who switch to kerosene for the initially forge weld to avoid the "white lines" at the weld seams partially in mosaic billets. The one caveat that I have heard from some folks is that you should handle the billet VERY gently in the forge as it comes up to heat and not move it around to much as you can disturb the very thin carbon coating.
As for Mr, Meier getting a laugh, i have had the pleasers of meeting him a couple of times and I am sure that he would have a friendly laugh. :D He has been doing this kind of thing for so long nd has been such an innovator that things that seem almost impossible for most of us are routine for him. :bow
You've had some good teachers.
Okay, given the idea of the thin carbon layer, how does it work in your mind? Leaving any thing behind in the weld boundary will potentially mean an inclusion flaw or delamination. Then why do it? The idea appears sensible, it has face validity, but how does it really work according to your experience and understanding. The carbon has a purpose if it is required for the process. Where does it fit into the high temperature steel chemistry that makes it worth doing?
Mike, I think that the argument is better to leave carbon than borax "glass". At least that is how I have heard it explained. My success rate with initial welds has been close to 100% since switching, but a fair part of that may be due to actually learning how not to screw up things like i did early on. LOL. Where it really shined was with the tiled end grain mosaic bars. But as you know, we are a superstitious lot at times, so I'm not going to mess with even meager success with the initial welds. With that said, at least one guy that I know, Russ Andrews, said in a pos in the last couple of days that he went from borax to kerosene a number of years ago, but recently went to true dry welding and said he never looked back after that last switch. Dry welding, even in a can, is a bit complicated for me at this point as i do not have a good or for now even functional welder with which to make a can or weld up the seams without leaving a lot of nasty weld wire. When my rich uncle gets out of the poorhouse and I can score a TIG machine, then I may take that next step.I have seen a couple of guys use one of those to weld up stacks, etc and that seems like something that would be vary handy. Of course, that means yet another learning curve, but then again, everything we do requires that.
I have always wanted to weld cable, but all the cable I have found of nice size around here has been filled with grease. I'll find some sometime and give it a whirl. I have a shaker of mule team borax that should do the trick...
Guys, this is a very good thread. Thanks for all the thoughtful comments. :tu
Now for a basic question if I may....
One of our guys, JBalls, may have access to some military grade aircraft arresting cable. The diameter is 1 .5 " with a 1/4" hemp core. He will try to get the military specs for more info.
So, what length should we cut it to allow for welding and clamping/twisting.
Ya, I know the hemp core may be a problem but maybe it will simply burn out then we have to twist it to take up the slack. Not to mention that a 1"+ diameter piece of steel will flatten out to a very long/wide piece of steel.