I've had for some time a copy of a not very good translation from the original French. Puraye' quotes part of this, and states it is from 1884. PeteM has a similar copy on his site from 1900. Peter Dyson has an exerpt on his site also. It is possible that it was part of the 1884 London Exposition and the 1900 Paris Exposition
It's long, but interesting, and I highlighted some statements that Steve Culver might be able to explain.
Manufacture of Damascus Gun-BarrelsE. Heuse-Lemoine 1884
(Translated from the original French)
Considering the extraordinary development and the many improvements which have taken place during these last few years in manufacturing the Damascus barrels for sporting arms, especially since the United States of America and Great Britain have imported our products, we think it would be useful to publish these following few lines about this kind of work.
What is known generally that the sporting arms are provided with Damascus barrels, but most sportsman are ignorant of the method and manner in which these Damascus Barrels are manufactured.
We shall try to give here an idea of its making.
Let us say that Liege, so renowned for its sporting guns, no more than London and Paris does not possess a single barrel-maker for manufacturing sporting guns. This part of the fire-arm being a specialty in the general manufacturing of guns in the particular industry of numerous works (Forges) of the Valley of Vesdre from where every year, hundreds and thousands of barrels are made and supplied to the gun makers at Liege, and also to many others, all over the world, but more especially to the English an American.
Our barrel industry only reached this enormous productions and gained such an extent on account of its excessive cheapness which results partly from the low rate of wages paid even the most skilled workmen; and partly from the advantageous geographical situation of this part of our country which is in a small area combines all indispensable elements to this industry.
First: The river La Vesdre and all its tributaries are driving a great number of hydraulical wheels which economical motive power is used for boring, polishing, turning, and grinding the barrels.
Second: The coal pits of the Highland of Herve are situated close at hand which furnish the necessary fuel to the Damascus works; and it is worthy to be noted that these mines furnish a special kind of coal, scarcely to be found anywhere else and is very suitable for our barrel-smiths who we dare say are very skillful at their art, having never done anything else in their life. It is not to be that these men must become first rate masters in the art of forging, if we consider that the
average number of heatings to soldering heat, a barrel receives at least a 150 for the fine Damascus tube, being 300 heatings for a double barrel and that if one of these heats has not well succeeded, that is to say the barrel has not received its rigorous precise temperature, the tube may be spoiled, either by the alteration of the Damascus, or by the traces of even the smallest want of soldering; you can easily imagine the skill which these workmen possess.
From the remotest times, this industry of gun-barrel manufacturing has been practised in the Valley of the Vesdre from Nessonvaux to Chaudfontaine. Under the first French empire, our renowned barrel-smiths furnished the contingent of work people for the Imperial manufactories. At that time all the barrels for military guns were forged by hand; the preparing of the iron for these barrels was exclusively performed with charcoal and the superiority of this iron to that preparation with coaks is well known, in our day of the speciality of fire-arms as we shall show a little for further.
Now let us come to our subject: the Damascus barrel which constitutes not only the chief, the essential part of the fire-arm, may be said to have become a master-piece, for it has maintained its place during the incessant progress accomplished in a few years, in firearms. We say in a few years, for indeed, half a century ago, the Damascus Manufacturing was only in its childhood,
it was only when the fulminate was used instead of flintstone that we may say Damascus Manufacturing really began. At that time, it is true, one could find here and there in some aristocratic hands a fowling piece with Damascus barrel, but that was a Damascus, the composition of which was very elementary, compared with our present Damascus. Our forgers and workshops then were almost exclusively occupied in making iron barrels and there were but few barrel-makers, who manufactured tubes or barrels called twist barrels (in French
cannons tordus, tors ou torches.)
This process consisted in making a contortion at each soldering heat which the longitudinal soldering of the iron barrel underwent, which evidently stretched the fibres of the iron into a transversal direction, the purpose of which was to give more consistency to the two for resisting or withstanding the dilatation produced by shooting.
This work, which was very slow gave only an imperfect result with respect to
Damas keening, but it produced the idea that for obtaining a great power of resistance united with the necessary lightness of the sporting gun, that transversal soldering must be highly preferable to the longitudinal, so that, by manual work ribbons were laminated and wound like a spiral as it is practiced in our days. The barrels thus manufactured with good charcoal iron proved to be already a great progress with respect to solidity, but offered of the Damascus appearance which was visible by certain traces of the spiral produced by the appearance of the fibres or the varnish of the metal.
At this time, Paris, that city of luxury, had also its barrel manufacturers such as Bernard, Leclerc, etc., whom, through the small in number, were not less excellent in their art, and it was from Paris that the first imitation came to us for the researches in combining some mixture of iron and steel in order to produce figures which we call Damascus, such as Turkish Damascus, Bernard, Leclerc and Parisian Damascus, etc., to an infinite number of names, as the combinations that compose the figures Damascus very consistently; almost like the designs on our hanging papers in our rooms, with only the difference, that in these the varieties produced by the colours on the surface, whilst the figures on the Damascus are produced by the substance or material like the designs or patterns in our linen weavers.
What is the Turkish or curled Damascus, the Horse-shoe-nail, the Boston, etc. that that are derived from them?
Well, these are the results of combinations of iron and steel (sheets) put alternately one upon the other exactly as a paquet (deck) of playing-cards always
a black (stripe) after a white one, for we must not forget that each iron sheet followed by a steel one represents a black stripe followed by a white; the iron and steel having this propriety to produce easily these two shades, when after the finishing of the barrel, we submitted to the operation called a bronzage or putting it into color which consists in rubbing it over with certain acids. The steel as well as the iron for these fine Damascus barrels must be of a special quality, which is to be got in Wesphalia in Germany from the manufacturers of this metal, especially from the firm Koite of Luttringhausen which supplies as with all we want in this article in which enjoys all the great reputation for this type of article.
Their Bernard Damascus, a name given to this combination by the celebrated barrel-maker Leopold Bernard, who exclusively manufactures this kind of Damascus, we say, is not composed with sheets but with square bars alternately of iron and of steel placed regularly and alternately in a manner is represent a chessboard. Such are in short the primary dispositions of the combination on the mixing of iron and steel which constitute a Damascus.
In order to make our readers understand easily we shall limit our explanations for the present, by giving them a short oversight over the divers evolutions which a packet or lump of this compressed metal is to undergo before and may be successfully transformed into a fine gun barrel. This is generally composed, at least for the curled Damascus, which is now a days most appreciated for fine guns, of about thirty sheets, which each have a thickness of 4mm and a breadth of 120mm thus a square mass of about 50cm long and are kept together in their position either by a light box of common sheet iron or by the help of a small wire-circle at each extremity.
The packet thus prepared is poured into the oven, in order to be welded together at a slight temperature for we must not forget that too hot a fire would spoil the metal and produce what we call a burned Damascus, that is to say, the mass would be altered and which show only a small or no figure of Damascus.
It is for the same reason that in this kind of curled or other fine Damascus, we may not use any other but we refined charcoal iron, because it has, contrary to the Swedish iron, the propriety of being very light colored and consequently of a contrasting hue with the steel and moreover by its natural purity contrary to the coak iron it does not require nor want to be welded at a high temperature for being purified; as we just observed it would be in discord with the steel, its alloy, which cannot and must not be exposed to excessive heat when welding. (It is the [unreadable] Stok Company at Grivegnee [Liege] which enjoys the highest reputation for the preparing these packets of lumps for welding and reducing them into stripes.)
Unfortunately the manufacturing iron by means of coaks is almost everywhere prevailed over its manufacturing with charcoal on account of the extensive use of coaks in all kinds of metallic construction and especially because it is a great deal cheaper, so that charcoal iron becomes more and more scarce.
In Belgium there are only
Mess. Mineur et Son a Couvin who manufacture and furnish us this speciality of iron, which we must declare give us the greatest satisfaction by its undeniable superiority and which it is really indispensable for manufacturing fine Damascus barrels.
A great number of fruitless trials have been made with all their similar metals, among others Swedish iron which has the advantage of being fibrous but it also has a defect of being a steely nature, so that it is not produce a beautiful Damascus; it's hue is blending and confounding with that of steel, so that only an imperfect Damascus is resulting from it.
The coak-iron however is also much used in manufacturing barrels on account of its being very cheap, but it cannot be employed in manufacturing the superior kind of Damascus barrels on account of its impurities and of some other defects unseparable from its nature. Therefore it is only made use of in making common and cheap barrels.
We said that the mass of thus prepared sheets were given over to the welding oven or rechafing furnace in order to be welded and afterwards to be laminated in the rolling mill and reduced into small square stripes of 7 to 9 mm thickness according to their use or destination.
The stripes now passed through the hands of the dressing barrel-smiths (who prepares the ribbons) this man makes them white hot in order to twist them in such a manner that every meter length of stripe makes 200 tortions around itself.
Here is yet something to be noticed in favor of the charcoal-iron, for the stripes composed with this kind of iron may be wrung and twisted, and furnish a very fine Damascus, where the coak-iron can only imperfectly be twisted and gives a coarser Damascus.
The same observation may be made respecting the smithwork, more the man is hammering the Damas composition made with charcoal-iron, more it gains hardness and metallic elasticity, were as the contrary takes place in the same composition made up with coak-iron. The stripes twisted in this manner are united front to 2 to 6 together, according to the more or less fine figured we wish to obtain, and are then welded and laminated together in form of ribbons, the thickness of which is different according to the variable thickness of the barrel down to its muzzle.
It is yet to be observed that the torsion which the stripes are to undergo, must be of a geometrical regularity if we want to obtain a regular figure without forgetting that the same torsion must follow the graduations of thickness of the ribbon; that is to say, the tortions are less numerous at the place with a ribbon must keep more thickness, or else the figure would become prolonged proportionately to the prolongation that the ribbon should have got its lesser thickness. The [ribband] thus prepared is rolled like a spiral around a mandrel which is been before enveloped with an iron sheet called the sleeve, the purpose of which is to give a certain stiffness to this roll after the mandrel has been taken out, else the thus prepared barrel would like a spiral-spring, the form of which it has; and
could without this sleeve not be conveniently welded, because the resistance of the spring would not a allow an efficacious adhesion of the spiral junctures whilst it is hammered down.Thus the projected barrel assumes by degrees in the above said manner its final form with respect to the proportional thickness it must have from the powder room (chamber) down to the muzzle. For the barrels pass into the hands of a smith was is welding all the joints of the spiral,
proceeding successively by small portions of 4 cm in hammering it on an anvil provided with half circular grooves.This barrel, as we see, is not a massive or solid bar, but it tube of which the hollow space is maintained by a mandrel (called broche) which the hammerer takes out at each welding-heat, and puts in again for the ensuing hammering; here it is again the iron-sheet sleeve which renders this introduction easier without putting the spiral out of order.
We must observe here, that if this iron-sheet sleeve produces a great facility in forging the barrel, it furnishes at the same time the means for committing a very bad mistake, when, as is often the case with inferior or common barrels the manufacturer does not care enough for excellent workmanship in order to make some economy to which he is sometimes induced by the competitors and low prices, he does not leave the ribbons of sufficient thickness, so that the sleeve may only serve as an auxiliary object. That is to say, when the barrel is forging and the thickness of the ribbon almost allowed to reduce the hollow of the tube to such a diameter that be small enough that in lighting the barrel and reducing it, to its definite caliber, all the sleeve have not been completely taken away, where from results that the sportsman will discover after shooting or otherwise small iron splinters, known under the name of
chambres which are nothing else but little remainder of the iron-sheets-sleeve that has not completely vanished. This defect is often found in inferior common Damascus barrels, because it is in the beginning of a rapid interior decay of the arm and at the same time very disadvantageous during the action of the firing.
The barrel in the same manner welded and forged as exactly is possible to the exterior dimensions which it must have in its finished state, which is an essential condition for its conserving all the elasticity, it has acquired, through the hammering is now passing over to the final operations in the sleeve by a first boring out, after which the barrel is straightened, made lighter, polished and ground on a grinding-stone, which method has always been preferred so, that with a lathe we could not obtain so perfect an equality in the thickness of the tube.
We shall not enter into the particulars of garnishing and trimming out which consists in
uniting both tubes either by welding them with tin or with the help of brass. The care with which this operation is done is proportional to the quality of the gun, and unfortunately it is often done very [cheaply], because contrary to the usage of other countries, these garnishing is done at Liege by the gun manufacturers themselves. Thereof necessarily it often results quarrels and contestations between the gun maker and the barrel-smith about the responsibility when some barrels have been found with defects in its garnishing or trimming what very recently has yet been proved by a law-suit about this point.
Considering that the garnishing of barrel must be an object of greatest care, since the good quality of the gun, as especially for precise shooting is depending from it, we desire to assume the full responsibility for our articles by furnishing the barrels garnished and completely finished in perforated with care, either choke-bored or smooth perforation just as the customers desire who will kindly favor us with their orders.
In this manner, we are perfectly sure to furnish irreproachable barrels, for we submit them ourselves to a serious shooting proof before delivering them to our
friends and clients.
Our chief purpose in publishing this short notice is to try to give the reader a precise idea of the operations and cares which requires the manufacturing of a good perfect gun barrel and we are fully aware that every true sportsman who read these few lines with some interest. We cannot too much insist on the careful choice of a bad materials which is used in this fabrication especially in our days where imitations and falsifications are executed in large proportions, in order to realize a cheaper price for procuring a rapid sale, and everybody will be the same opinion with us that the careful workmanship which constitute the principal part in this manufacturing must reasonably not be sacrificed on account of the slight difference in the cost price of the barrel when make use of bad raw materials instead of using iron and steel of first quality.
Even the case that the time reader should think we were priding ourselves about our materials and work, we can however not help declaring finally that are firm claims the right of being able to warrant its barrels in every respect and the sportsman who do not take the advantage to apply directly to us may always make sure having a barrel coming from our work if they will notice that their only to require our trade mark.
