Hi, Bob
. I want to say the cable was about 1", but after getting welded solidly, it ended up smaller than that. Enough that we welded 3 pieces of it together and into a square billet. I did that at Doc's place quite a while back, too.
It was a lot of fun getting to do the forging with him. Having him there to give suggestions as I tried to drift them out was really helpful. Not having done it before, I wondered a few times if it was all messed up beyond help. But, with a few tweaks and tricks, they were all salvaged. A lot of cross peening for the blades, though
. I opted for that instead of the power hammer so as not to completely mess things up any faster than I already was. It was worth it and you can actually move a fair amount of material pretty quickly with a hammer. Hoping to be able to make something decent out of these.
Jeremy