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

Sherman Bell's got a little "twisted" information in there.

Joe;

Buck did a nice job on your barrels. He has browned barrels for me in the past and I think that his work is excellent.

I do not know if anyone knows exactly how the color of the final finsh of browned damascus barrels looked as they were completed by gunmakers of England in 1870 (for instance). I have been told that they should be Hershey chocolate color. And if this is true then the barrels finished by Nick Chambers fos the "new old" Greener hammergun (as seen on page 87 of the Summer 2008 issue of "DOUBLE GUN JOURNAL" is likely correct for that period.

On a related note to barrel browning I submit an extract from and advertisement in December 1803 Charleston, South Carolina newspaer by my ancestor Thomas Hennon, gunsmith. "Thomas Hennon, late of Liverpool...at No. 38 Queen street near King Steet...guns and pistols stocked and repaired in the neatest manner and guns and pistols browned, equal to any in Europe."

In a latter advertisement, Thomas Hennon warns the public that his formula for barrel browned has been unlawfully taken by others and that he is the only ",,,regular bred gunsmith" knowing the secret and that he has ..."worked in all the polite" countries as a gunsmith.

Quite a play on words.

Greeners had there own formula and their finish was more of a chocolate brown colour and looked very good my grandfathers family have been browning barrels for 150 years plus, my formula is slighty different to theirs as some chemicals are no longer available and have changed over the years, but the finish is the same as the brown on guns I own that he finished years ago, although I have seen different types of brown like greeners, sometimes the metal your working dictates the final finish to some extent.

This photo shows the actual color better than the other photo. Like I said I'm well pleased with his work.

Very nice indeed jOe. Could you tell us what the turnaround time was on this job and what shape the barrels were in before the job? Thanks, Keith

Here's the best before picture I could find. The barrels were almost silver but in really good shape...just a few knicks and scratches on them. Turn around time was about a month.

Paul's been inspired to branch out to 'Black & white' Here's his first effort using his standard browning formula which brought up the pattern, then boiled and carded three times, then coating the barrels with 7 % ferric chloride followed by carding in water.



Actually, 'Black & white' was not uncommon in British guns. Both of these are T. Kilby barrels

My first attempt at black and white started ok the pattern came up ok, and after boiling and carding you could still see the pattern, after rusting boiling and carding 3 times I coated the barrels with 7% ferric chloride, and then wet carding, the result is some areas of the barrels are showing up nicely athough more grey and white than black and white, other parts of the barrel are grey looking with little pattern showing? any suggestions to where I am going wrong?

I have just thought of something should I have watered my solution down?

BB,
You should be doing a short (10-15 second) FeCl bath followed quickly by a water rinse to thoroughly flush the FeCl then the wet carding. If that is what you did, you may have to resort to a "stop bath" of baking soda quickly after the water flush.

Now thats great contrast on that Kilby gun! WOW! Beautiful gun too BTW!