Five-Strand Cable Twist, c.1855

"The twist is continued below by a five strand cable twist..."
Harper's, February 1855.

Here's the other five-strand plait I've found: a five-strand cable twist. To be fair, the only reference I've seen to this twist is in the Harper's illustration above.  Except for the instructions, which call for three strands, I've found no other references to cable twists/plaits/braids which say how many to use. This leads me to suspect that three-strand cable twists are the default, but the evidence isn't concrete.  At least one source uses "rope" for the two-strand version, but there may be come overlap between cable and rope twists.

To review, the three-strand cable plait is slight variation on a basic flat three strand braid: the right-hand strand goes over the center, but instead of staying there, it loops around the center strand and goes back to the right side; the left likewise goes around the center and back home. 

Transforming that into a five strand, the key attributes seem to be:

• Center strand (probably) stays put
• The moving strand returns to its general area
• Strands need to advance

First method attempted: Far left strand goes over less-far-left and center, around the center and into the less-far-left position. The center strand stays in the center, while the former less-far-left strand advances to the far-left position. Repeat with the right. Then the left again. This is the most straightforward and most similar to the 3-strand, so it's my preferred option.

The active strand going over its neighbor and the center strand.

Continue advancing: over 2 and back under the center,
then repeat from the other side.

This five-strand cable plait is round, but looks 
an awful lot like the three-strand version.

Second hypothetical method: As the first, but with the moving strand goes over the three middle strands instead of just two. That's over three, around the far two, and back to the position next to where it started. This one was really hard to keep the strands separated, and ends up being a more complicated way to achieve the same effect as the first one.

I can't tell them apart, but #2 was a lot more annoying to make.

Third hypothetical method: borrowing a little more from the weaving of the flat 5-strand plait: take the moving strand over the nearest strand, then under and around the center strand, and ending between the center and the starting position. This does give an interesting woven effect, but I'm seeing much of a 'cable'.

The first method looks like a cable,
but the third just looks like the flat 5-strand braid.

When all is said and done, I think the first method (moving strand goes over neighbor and around the center, repeat from other side), is the easiest method that actually produces a cable-plait. I'm not seeing much benefit to using the five strands rather than three, but it is possible.

To recap with ribbons:

Five ribbons. The purple will always be the center,
while the orange and black will stay on their respective sides.

Active "long black" strand goes over short black and purple.

Active long black strand then goes back under the purple
and ends between the short black and purple ribbons.

New active "long orange" ribbon repeats the process:
over short orange and purple, around purple.

After two passes, the long and short ribbons have traded places
within their respective sides.

With the multicolor ribbons,
this actually makes a nice pattern.