Cable Damascus layers?

[Terry_Dodson]

What do you call cable damascus layers? I made a small knife from some of the elevator cable i got, and was showing it to my wife, and tried explaining the pattern and told her i started off with 2 pieces of cable with 7 strands each which gave me 14 (layers ?), welded, folded, and flattened which gave me 28, welded, folded, and flattened which gave me 56, and welded, folded, and flattened which gave me 112. She questioned why i called them layers, that they werent really layers, just pieces. Am i wrong in calling them layers? also is my math correct? After etching and cleaning the blade, i used perma blue gun blueing to show off the pattern. I then wrapped a peice of leather cording around the tang for a handle.

 

[Bruce Evans]

Sorry to say your wife is correct,Cable is counted by strands and folds not layers.
If you fold it a bunch of times it does get a layer look but it is still just strands.Ken Durham and myself used to add it to the Damascus mix to make it look like more layers but only have a low layer billet and just counted as one layer.Called a cable layer..
Sorry about this,
Bruce

 

[Terry_Dodson]

Thanks for the reply my wife sure will be happy to hear that :footinmou ya know what i mean? Can i ask you a question about making Damascus? What thickness and sizes of stock do you use to make damascus? i know you usually use at least 2 type of steel like 1084 and L-6, but i guess i am trying to figure out how thin the stock is to get a fair layer count? I mean to get 112 layers of 1084 & L-6 what would you start with, keep in mind i dont have any power equipment except a bench grinder. Also where would you get the steel from, i dont have any local companies that even carry the 10xx series steel. but they do carry some L-6. Do you have any more pics of your hawks? You have great pictures, and your Damascus Hawk pictures are what got my interest in Damascus going. Thanks.

 

[Bruce Evans]

Terry,If you do my Frontier style damascus you don't need any suppliers,just scrap from the shop or a local machine shop and add a piece at a time,I put everything in the mix from nails nuts and bolts to pieces of any steels I have plus wrenches heck just anything that will harden.A trip to the local scrap metal yard will give you lots of material to work with.Pick up a couple old flat car springs and a couple old saw blades,you can pay them a little extra to torch this stuff into widths you want and lengths.Then just clean then up when you get them home and stack them up and weld them.If you want allot of layers quick you can stack a billet with banding material and bandsaw blades,These are also available at the scrap yard.To get cool random patterns I will mix thicknesses of steel,like a piece or two of 1/4 inch then a few pieces of 1/8 inc and then some of the banding material.Most people just stack 1/8 inch thick pieces at a stack of about 6 or 7 layers,6 inches long.Then you just fold it as you weld and stretch.6 becomes 12 then 12 becomes 24 then24 becomes 48 and so on.If you want to mix up the pattern a little stretch and cut in three pieces then stack and weld this will make the layer count add up faster also.Just have fun at first and you will feel like a kid at Christmas everytime you grind into a new billet of Damascus.
No I don't have any other pictures of the hawks,just the ones on my web site.Glad you like them.
Bruce