Cable Damascus/ Where can I find good Cable?

C

coldsteelburns

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Aug 2, 2010
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Hey, I was wondering if anybody knows where people get their cable to make cable damascus. I live near Seattle, WA (not sure if that helps at all) and I have checked a metal scrap yard and found none at all. Is there a place that you can buy some from online just like ordering normal blade steels and damascus etc. I appreciate any and all help anyone can provide me with! Thanks :)

-Paul
 
Paul,
Look around for rigging suppliers. There must be a few around Seattle. They usually have wonderful scrap bins.
The good is that it is usually cheap, or free. And even better is they know exactly what it is. No guessing.
 
Go to your local crane service. Most scrap yards don't take cable because it destroys the shredder. After being in the business for 30 years, I have miles of the stuff. I couldn't give it away. If your passing through Ct. I'll give you a reel.
 
You used to be able to buy chunks of cable for knives from hightemptools.com- not sure if it's still there.
 
coldsteelburns said:
Hey, I was wondering if anybody knows where people get their cable to make cable damascus. I live near Seattle, WA (not sure if that helps at all) and I have checked a metal scrap yard and found none at all. Is there a place that you can buy some from online just like ordering normal blade steels and damascus etc. I appreciate any and all help anyone can provide me with! Thanks :)

-Paul
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You can call around to all the different fabrication shops in Seattle and see if they'll let you dig through their scrap bins. Or go down to Pier 91 (tell them they your there to see American Sea foods and don't forget to fill out the card they give you before you leave) and ask the fishing boats for free stuff. A lot of the time they'll just leave scrap bins/piles on the beach.
 
... not sure if you are close to "logging country" but logger supply folks deal with a lot of cable and may have scrap or roll-ends.
 
Some cable is better then others. The Crane service sound like a great option. The best stuff I have used is hight tension bridge cable.
You will want to clean the cable. I what do for this get good and hot in the forge then qunch in a bucket of water this will blow all the crap out of it.

If you cant find any I got a budddy in Cathlamet Washington that has some Im sure he would sell you some He could put a bunch in a flate rate box.

Brett
 
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^^^
Ha, ha, ha...I stopped reading the various buttons once I saw the Steel button, so I missed that. Good go Salem!
 
Look online or call 411 for your nearest elevator company, Schindler, Otis, or whatever.
We replace cables every day and toss it in the trash. Find their shop and hop in the dumpster. You will find old and new cable.

-Eric
 
wow! You guys have helped enormously!! I've really gotta stop just trolling the forums for info and start getting involved! Thanks to every one of you for your time and help, thats the best thing about knife makers, you're all so generous and eagerly willing to help out a fellow knife maker :)

MadBug, I'll deffinitely have to look into that, sounds fool proof, thanks for the great tip! :)

Chris, I actually live in Federal Way literally right down the street from Wild Waves theme park (walking distance) which is depending on traffic maybe 20-30 min drive to Seattle, I just say I'm near Seattle cause nobody knows where the heck Federal Way is LOL But anyway, All of this is Exactly the type of info I need, I'm really not that resourceful so this is great. I'm a bit confused about the whole being there to see sea foods (you mean act like I'm there as a tourist and for another reason other than lookin for free cable? lol. sorry if that's waay of what you meant )

Also, I don't think the metal yard I went to actually scraps their metal, they just have a bunch on random crap (good crap :D ) laying around for selling and they also have a bunch of their own steel that they'll cut to size and sell that as well (it's where I got my square tubing to mae my NWG grinder) This place is pretty close to where I live and very large, maybe I didn't look hard enough.

Anyway, I think the logging, bridge working, crane making places, elevator places etc. would be perfect for me since I'm trying to get the stuff for free B) lol

Brett, thank you very much, I may have to take your friend up on that if I have no luck. It would sure be nice too get good lengths of different diameters of the cable but after all, I'm still learning how to forge weld. I've been wanting to try welding cable for a long time now since its already "pre-billetized" ;) and if I happen to screw up, I'll only be wasting propane and not steel that I paid for and took a bunch of time to clean , cut to size and tac weld together, I'm pretty slow at all that , not to mentiong unemployed at the moment.. well , long moment ;) so free would be nice lol

I have another quick question... A while back there was a wind storm here and the next day there were powerlines down and guys reparing them. I searching the area a few days after and found a length of power line cable. I actually tried to weld the stuff (it's about 3/8" mayyybe 1/2" in diameter) and I put it in my forge to burn off any residue etc... the flame, I can't remember exactly but is was a weird color.. any way it did't turn out but that just might be because I didnt prep it well enough, didn't weld it proberly, etc etc. However it DID do a quench test of the stuff and the pieces of the part it quenched the snapped right off, and shattered when smacked with a hammer. Any of you have any knowledge or experience with this stuff? I still have some..

Again, thank you all very much! if I get some anytime soon I make sure to post a pic of w/e creation comes from it! Take it easy!

-Paul

Here's my youtube channle (there's a few vids that show my level of forge welding on it (I have gotten better since those, but still havn't made a damascus knife yet, only made mild/high carbon san mai and wrought/High carbon with either some nickel or L6 between san mai :D ) www.youtube.com/lsubslimed
 
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my advice would be to not monkey with used cable you spend a lot of time and often end up with junk. I think high temptools has been sold out but if you type that address you will get new owner leroyk
 
elementfe said:
It would be nice to have some idea of what's in EIPS (plow steel).
Anyone know?
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I have read in a few places that it is 1085 steel, and that you heat treat it just as if it were 1084. Check out Ariel Salaverrias' site, as he makes a lot of his blades from cable damascus and he also lists it as being 1085. Hope that helps B)
 
12345678910 said:
EIPS is Extra Improved Plow Steel



Old copies of the Machinery's Handbook list the steel type or class it's in,
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That's on my wish list. Does anyone know what the composition might be? Or is it a fairly broad class of materials?
My Google mojo must be stale, not finding anything.
 
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