doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Damascus explained

In The Gun, or a Treatise on the Various Descriptions of Small Fire-Arms, Greener described 9 different gun barrels at that time, and in general was extremely critical of the quality of British gun barrels being produced:
1. Damascus from only two sources: Mr Clive of Birmingham and George Adams of Wednesbury
2. Wire-Twist Iron
3. Stub-Twist Iron or Stub Damascus. Made from horse-nail stubs (iron) mixed with coach spring steel, fused into a "bloom of iron", then hammer forged into rods, rolled into threads, which were then wrapped around a mandrel and welded.
4. Mr Wiswoulds Iron Barrels and a similar product called Silver Steel. These are described as ¾ steel and ¼ iron and from the description may be Two Rod Laminated Steel
5. Charcoal Iron (without steel) – inferior to Stub-Twist
6. Threepenny Skelp Iron
7. Twopenny/Wednesbury Skelp
8. Sham Damn Skelp which apparently was stained to look like Wire-Twist
9. Swaff Iron Forging made up from small scrapes of lockplates and gunscrews

In my opinion and from what I have read, an addition that the Wire twist was from horseshoe "stub" nails and other quality irons(saws, pen making waste, etc.) may be required. One of the others, maybe Charcoal Iron, was composed of old coach springs which was considered inferior metal. This was described in "Gunnery in 1858" I believe.


Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Charcoal Iron refers to the smelting process.

Large tracts of forest were destroyed to provide charcoal to smelt the ore into iron. As time went on other sources of fuel were sought out. The logical replacement was coal. However, the final solution was a coal derivative, coke. So, most smelters turned to coke. The Belgian damascus makers complained bitterly about coke smelted iron. They prized the charcoal produced iron above all other.

It turns out that coke introduces silicon impurities and a certain amount of sulfur, which makes damascus production difficult.

Pete

Greener measured the strength of the barrels (strongest to weakest) as:
Wire-Tist
Stub Twist
Charcoal
3d. Skelp
Damascus
Wiswould’s
Clearly at some point, damascus and laminated steel production was refined and improved to the point that British Laminated Steel was the winner of the Birmingham Proof House Test of 1891.


And for all you home chemists-here you go (I don't believe OSHA would approve of this stuff )

On the Staining of Barrels
There exists innumberable recipes, and in fact almost every maker has his own method. The first I have found to answer uncommonly well, and which it would be a difficult matter to excel. It consists of the following ingredients:-
1 oz. Muriate Tincture of Steel
1 oz. Sp. Wine
½ oz. Muriate of Mercury
¼ oz. Stong Nitric Acid
1/8 oz. Blue Stone
1 quart Water
These are well mixed, and allowed to stand a month to amalgamate. After the oil or grease has been removed from the barrels by lime, the mixture is laid with a sponge, every two hours, and scratched off with a steel-wire bruch every morning, until the barrels are dark enough; and then the acid is destroyed by pouring on the barrels boiling water, and continuing to rub them until nearly cool.

Drew is posting a historical note. Not to be attempted today.

Muriate of Mercury, just the thing NOT to have around the house. Mercury was used by the hat makers of 19th century. After enough exposure the term "Mad as a Hatter" was a real observation. It was also used in the original Dageurrotype process. Mercury fumes were used to develop the exposed silver plate. Again with the same result on the end user.

http://books.google.com/books?id=y08P3GE...DzmT5fN1aZhsiiI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning

Pete

Nice post PeteM. If you have a job, when do you have time to sleep in researching all this quality information?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

I second Raimey's observation, other than Jerry Swinney, PeteM is either the most gifted or the most dogged gun researcher I have ever encountered... probably a mix of both...long ago, I rated him a 3 star...is there a way for me to re-rate this member to a 5 1/2 star?

And he's suppose to be off bird hunting right now-who is driving the car while you're on the lap-top Pete, the DOG?!?

(and it's extremely unlikely that any of us could purchase that stuff today! Check http://books.google.com/books?id=y08P3GE...5x7s1lubGl-1gSM )

Mr. Chambers: just make a category for General and that could be PeteM.

revdocdrew: I believe that there is another similar witch's brew for bringing out the barrels contrast in "The Gun, 1934."

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

That's where the formula came from, but watch what you say this close to Samhain and All-hallowsmas