We've seen examples of barrels with two different serial numbers or two different Damascus patterns that were apparently at one time returned to the maker to have a damaged tube replaced. It seems to me that if it is possible to mate an original tube with a new replacement tube, it would be just as possible to mate two used tubes.
I'd be interested to hear what you all think of this... feasability,
I am faced with a similar problem right now and have spoken with Doug Turnbull and other expert gunsmiths who have all said that they do not have anything capable of producing the kind of heat necessary to seperate the brazed joints of the barrel breechs and lug area and then reassembling them. Kirk Merrington said that he doubts that he can do it but would like me to send him the gun so he can "look it over".
I'm pretty sure someone, somewhere, can do this. Every double gunmaker in this country did it. And the ones that were doing it a hundred years ago certainly weren't using any sophisticated furnaces with inert gas atmospheres.
Still, I am hesitant to fire up a bed of coals in a forge or use a rosebud to get the final heat necessary to un-braze a set. I'm sure a forge fire alone would provide more than enough heat as that was sufficient for welding Damascus. I'm wondering what un-brazing and re-brazing will do to the metallurgy of the barrels. How were they cooled to prevent brittleness? Will this leave them too soft (annealed) and prone to bulging? What, exactly, did they use for the braze joint? What type of flux was used? How about scale formation, both internal and external? Presumably, this was not a problem with new barrels that were struck, finish reamed, and chambered after jointing, but what happened when barrels were sent back to replace one blown or damaged tube?
You would think that everyone who had this knowledge was long dead. But they are still making two barrel guns today. Yet of all the aspects of gunmaking and gunsmithing, the art of sticking two barrels together seems to be the most vague and sketchy at best.
I've been searching for this knowledge for several years, but I am about to move on to something easier like figuring out how the Egyptians built the pyramids.
