New cable damascus sgian dubh in progress

[jmercier]

So, it finally got warm enough for me to spend some time in my workshop doing some forging. I decided it was time to make another sgian dubh, and I liked very much the cable damascus look on a sgian dubh from the last one that I had made.

I started off with a section of twisted crane cable



I forge welded this into a solid billet of steel, and then surface ground away the fire scale and most of the hammer marks and pits to get a usable bar. If you look in this picture you can see the cable pattern in the steel where it ground slightly differently at the weld points so that the flash made it show up.



The billet of steel I had was much more than I needed for a single blade, but not quite enough for two with the size it was as it lay, so I took it out and forged down the center of the bar to be the tang on a pair of billets to make two smaller hidden tang knives. I again ground the surface of the billets to keep it clean and get rid of the fire scale and decarb. The top one in this picture is the one which I then chose to use for the sgian dubh.



I then profiled the blade using my last sgian dubh and a sharpie as a template. As can be seen there were still some low spots from a few errant hammer blows, but the places that they were are such that they'll be gotten rid of when I finish the bevels on the blade.



Lastly I started to flat grind the bevels spine to edge so that there is no plunge line. This is the point that I'm at with the blade currently, and hope to finish grinding the bevels this week so I can start on some file work on the spine this next weekend, after which I will heat treat the blade and then finish the bevels to their final polish. Above the sgian dubh is another blade i forged out and started to grind out the bevels for. It's a plain 1084 steel drop point hunter.

[Big Mikey]

That is looking mighty fine. The cable is an interesting starting point. Does the strand pattern show when finished?

[SFCRick]

looks great, want to see the final product

[Rab Gordon]

That's going to be some blade, I look forward to seeing the finished Sgian Dubh

Rab

[Rogerson785]

That is neat to be able to take steel cable and turn it into a functional blade. I would imagine the blade holds an edge very well with the steel interwoven.

[Rogerson785]

I just visited Rab Gordon’s page again and was pleasantly surprised to see my Sgian Brew picture I took on the web page, he asked if he could use it and of course, I said yes, it’s so nice to see his quality work and my tile work on the Internet.

Thanks Rab

[jmercier]

That is looking mighty fine. The cable is an interesting starting point. Does the strand pattern show when finished?

Once the blade is finished and the bevels polished, I will etch the blade using FeCl which will eat away the metal at different speeds depending on the hardness, this will leave the pattern plain to see in normal light.

here is a picture of the last cable sgian dubh blade I made

http://www.tharkis.com/images/knives/3/sgiandubh11.jpg

You can see the pattern in the blade after it's etched, the above picture wasnt as deep an etch as I could have done, but I liked how it came out.

[Jock Scot]

My word sir,you are one very skilled man.

[Donnie]

Having tried forge welding---very awsome blade! I can't wait to see the finished knife.

[Standard]

Very interesting pattern on the blank on the link you gave us. Can't wait to see the final product. The skill of the folks here on Xmarks never ceases to amaze me.