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Rev,

Getting back to your Greener recipe and method, does that read correct? Just keep applying coats of rusting formula for a whole day and card just once a day?

The boil would give a black, not brown, correct? Thought the English guns were mostly "Browned"?

I have the day off, it's hot and humid with a good breeze. Busted out the LMF that has been sitting around unopened for nearly a year and am giving a "Brown" finish a try.

Best,
Mark

775: straight from his book and I believe the best advice would be DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME! As Pete said, this is extremely dangerous stuff, and we're talking about techniques used almost 200 years ago.
Have you seen the 'Flanigan's Damascus Restoration' album?
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=17977891

No worries on the mercury Rev, am trying the "process" with Laurel Mountain Forge solution.

Yup, read that link a while back(and saved it, thank you), seems to be a "black" process though and thought the Greener method still possible with modern chemistry for a "Brown"?

If I skip the Boil?

Thanks for the concern!
Mark

BTW: Not sure what the 'Sp. Wine' is, but pretty sure it's for the browning mixture, not the browning-person

I haven't heard from Paul Stevens in a bit, but he was working on marketing a 'Browning' solution
paul@stevensandjohnson.freeserve.co.uk

Eureka-now THIS is interesting!!
?SILVER-STEEL FOUND?

In The Gun, or a Treatise on the Various Descriptions of Small Fire-Arms by William Greener 1835, Mr Wiswould’s Iron Barrels and a similar product called Silver Steel are described as ¾ steel and ¼ iron which were also fused into a “bloom”, welded under tilt hammers, then rolled into rods. This might represent early Two Rod Laminated Steel as the 'billet' did not start with the 'piling' of alternating iron and steel strips, but the fused iron and steel mixture which was then flattened into strips, twisted, wound around the mandrel, and welded.
In William Wellington Greener's The Gun and Its Development, 1907, Junior stated that Silver Steel was "used by the author."
A percussion W. Greener 12b #19707 is on the Julia auction site which is stamped "Inventor of Laminated Steel" on top rib. Unfortunately, no close up of the barrels is provided, nor the date of manufacture.
This Keith Kearcher refinished late 1880s Greener G60 was felt to have Bernard I damascus BUT it seems more likely that this is Silver Steel, and does resemble the illustration in the 1935 book



I believe someone here sent me that pic. Anyone else out there with a Greener with similar barrels??

WOW-the damascus crucible runneth over!!

Shooting By Baron Thomas de Grey Walsingham, Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, Lord Charles Lennox Kerr, Archibald John Stuart-Wortley, Gerald Lascelles, Simon Fraser Lovat 1886 http://books.google.com/books?id=MT9NF4B...th+edition+1910
A Short History of Gun-making starts on p. 51 http://books.google.com/books?id=MT9NF4B...and%22#PPA51,M1

And on p. 73 some great stuff:
"Best Silver Steel Damascus barrels contain over 70% of the finest steel, and it is the systematic twisting and arrangement of the iron and steel bars, as they are welded together and beaten into a flat ribbon before being coiled into the form of a tube, that give the beautiful figure or pattern observed in a first-class twist barrel..."
"Laminated steel barrels differ but slightly from those known as 'Damascus.' The former were first made by Mr. W. Greener (senior), of Birmingham, about 1850, and were composed of three parts steel and one part iron. At the present time the best English damascus, as well as laminated steel barrels, contain over 60% of the harder metal, and there is little perceptible difference between Damascus and a laminated Damascus barrel, as both are of very similar workmanship and materials."

Drew-

The gun barrels pictured belong to my younger brother's Greener and I have actually held and fired that shotgun before Keith worked on it. This is really a very sweet shotgun by the way, Keith not only did the barrels but he bedded the stock and tightened up the action, which wasn't too bad as found. The gun has a lot of very well done engraving and really all it lacks is ejectors to make it "all tricked out" and I strongly suspect that as anyone ordering that shotgun could have afforded anything he wanted...the owner simply had no use for ejectors.

When I began to understand, thanks mostly to you, that the white of a damascus barrel represented steel, I too was amazed at these barrels because they had more white pattern than dark (almost the reverse of the typical pattern).

Are "silver steel" barrels rare?

Doug

Thanks Doug-I'll add the appropriate attribution to the pic.
And in answer to your question, I didn't know there was such a thing until yesterday!

revdocdrew:

The definition of "steel" is what I took note of in reading some of Greener's publications. If I understand it correctly, they deemed iron(horsenail stubs, saws, etc.) to be better than steel. And then the types of barrels, all with some addition of steel. But as I have said, I think their school of thought changed with time.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Drew,

That is great info. I think I have a gun "similar" barrels. Here is pictued of my 16 bore Greener, started in 1883 and finished in 1886. The barrels look similar to my eye. Unfortunately the photo is not as good as the one you posted. I still have not figured out people take such clear closeups.

http://truffula.fr.umn.edu/~kwythers/images/IMG_1.jpg