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Sidelock
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We probably won't know until one of our British Brethren finds the 'English Damascus Rosetta Stone', but Paul Stevens sent me several interesting pics of a pattern which is clearly not 'English Two Stripe' which follows  Please see http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfg2hmx7_2584fpzkcfv for an explanation. It seems that what Greener called 'Stub Damascus' was One Iron Crolle made of Stub rods which were twisted (which Twist is not)??   Doesn't look like a Persian Carpet jOe 
Last edited by revdocdrew; 02/05/09 03:55 PM.
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Sidelock
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I've always been under the impression that "stub" referred to the fact that the steel was derived from used horseshoe nails and didn't have anything to do with a particular pattern. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Jim
The 2nd Amendment IS an unalienable right.
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Sidelock
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Drew:
I see that Greener refers to it as "Stub Twist Iron" for the reason I alluded to above i.e. It's from horseshoe nails. I also remember that the reason they felt this material was superior was that the stress the nails were under in their original use somehow "tempered" the metal. I had the pleasure of actually watching damascus steel for knife blades being forged at a Renaissance craft exhibit around a year ago. They started out with "billets" of scrap band saw blades alternated with layers of the barrel banding materials you generaly see used in shipping. This made a very pleasing looking damascus when finished up.
Jim
The 2nd Amendment IS an unalienable right.
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Sidelock
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It is true the term derived from the use of pulled horse shoe nail stubs, often used with a mixture of chopped coach springs of approximately the same size pieces as the stubs for a steel content, the stubs being made of wrought Iron. As Drew mentions William Greener (Father of W W Greener) described both Stub Twist & Stub Damascus. The fact the bars for winding into the bbl thus consisted of smaller pieces having been welded first, thus produced a decided difference in the pattern than those bars consisting of longer strips. One thing of interest in W Greeners book, "The Gun 1834" was he took prepared rods of several varieties, prior to them being wound into a tube, & pulled them until they broke. By taking the size of the bar vs the lbs required to break it we can calculate the tensile strength of the bar. Stub Twist bars equalled 76,458 psi tensile.
Miller/TN
I Didn't Say Everything I Said, Yogi Berra
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Sidelock
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The barrels pictured are not stub twist.As pointed in earlier posts, William Greeners book,"The Gun 1834", describes in detail the material and process for manufacturing Stub twist/damascus barrels.
Richard Akehurst,s book, "Game Guns and Rifles" page 35 pictures stub twist showing the lump of horse shoe nails stubs from which the ribbon is being formed prior to coiling. Page 26 of this book also shows the figure developed on stub iron barrels.
Roy Hebbes
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Sidelock
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Thanks Roy. I'll try to get a copy of Akehurst.
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
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I hear the Rosetta stone is some where in Persia.
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Sidelock
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The 'stubs' referred to were a by-product; the trimming of the thick end of the horseshoe nail, rather than being made from old nails removed from a horse's hoof after having been 'worn'.
I think you are pursuing a good project here and I'm following it with interest. When I have digested and examined your body of work (when it has settled a little), I think I may be able to add a few points of interest, clarify one or two threads and raise one or two questions.
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Sidelock
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Thanks all. Our local library branch will have a copy of Akehurst for me Monday. Roy: does the image look like this? I believe this is Dr Gaddy's example of One Iron Crolle (two 1/2 scrolls between the ribband weld lines) 
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After a horse is Shod the hoof will continue to grow. After some growth it becomes necessary to pull the shoe, trim the hoof, & re-apply the shoe. Every reference I have ever seen re Stub Twist/Damascus indicated these "Pulled" stubs were used. Reference was made to the fact the iron had been compacted by the impact of the horse's hoof. Greener even insinuated (Which I would find exrtemely doubtful) that the stubs "Absorbed" carbon by virtue of this pounding within the hoof. All of this describes a nail which was "Worn" by the horse.
Miller/TN
I Didn't Say Everything I Said, Yogi Berra
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Sidelock
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I think I may be able to add a few points of interest, clarify one or two threads and raise one or two questions.
We'll be right here waiting.. 
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Sidelock
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dOc you should change your saying "AZ but dreaming of Kansas"
To "Shooting Fluid steel but dreaming of the roar of Damascus"
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Sidelock
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The illustration,s of Stub Damascus seen in both Akehurst,s and William Greener,s books do not show a uniform pattern as evident in your post. When you have the Akehurst book available, you will note that there is no uniform pattern in the illustrations of Stub Barrels.This is because the aglomeration of the nail stubs in the ball feeding the ribbon are in a random aray. Hence you see a mottled pattern on the finished barrel surface.
Roy Hebbes
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Thanks again Roy. Me & Lord Walsingham hO jOe  The Field Oct. 20, 1888 “A Shoot On The Moor” by Baron Thomas de Grey Walsingham I learned...that Whitworth steel barrels are not desirable for a heavy day's shooting. The explosion in them makes quite a different sound from that given off by Damascus barrels: there is more ring about it, and I can imagine that this might prove a serious annoyance to anyone who minds the noise of shooting. Moreover, the Whitworth barrels became hot much more rapidly than the Damascus, and this is a serious drawback ...I am replacing them with Damascus as in all my other guns.
Last edited by revdocdrew; 02/06/09 01:30 PM.
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I agree the the majority of nail stubs used for Forging stub barrels were of the used variety. I can say this because I have had the opportunity to examine a specimen similar to that illustrated in Akehurst book.
This a subject I have researched in the past. Here a couple of interesting findings:
1/ The gun makers of the period used only the best British made horse shoe nail stubs for barrel forging. This was because they were produced from Iron smelted from imported Sweedish ore. The imported ore was for all practical purposes pure iron. Thus by using selected nail stubs the risk of contamination from undesireable elements was minimised. William Greener describes the importance of sorting of nail stubs to eliminate those made from malleable iron. In addition he also desribes the cleaning of the stubs to eliminate contaminates prior to welding.
2/The gunmakers observed that pulled nails were a lot harder than when new. This was important to them because this was property they wanted to develope in their finished barrels. This increase in hardness we know today as, work hardening.The barrel makers learned to recreate the increase in hardness by cold hammering after the barrels were welded.
Roy Hebbes
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Sidelock
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Gentlemen, the more I read these "damascus threads" the more my desire for a shootable damascus hammer gun goes up!
Thank you for sharing.
JC
"...it is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance." Charles Darwin
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Sidelock
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"Stub Damascus" is probably a historically dated term anyway. It was used by Henry Wilkinson in Engines Of War: or, Historical and Experimental Observations on Ancient And Modern Warlike Machines And Implements, Including the Manufacture of Guns, Gunpowder, and Swords with remarks on Bronze, Iron, Steel, &c. published in 1841. http://books.google.com/books?id=0XJeF_o...w3u60I#PPA70,M1but by no one else (other than both W. and W.W. Greener) writing after about 1850 (unless they were 'borrowing' directly from W.) http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfg2hmx7_69dxb227c6W.W. seemed to use the term for any British damascus barrel, using the terms One, Two, and Three Iron, and Best "Stub Damascus" as late as 1907 http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfg2hmx7_234chsrtv6sBUT no "Stub Damascus" barrel was listed as having been tested in the Birmingham Proof House Trial of 1891 W. Greener also mentioned the increasing difficulty in obtaining high quality 'stubs', and by the mid 1800s, the Best Gun makers (including Purdey) seemed to be using 2 and 3 Iron Damascus rather than Stub Twist.
Last edited by revdocdrew; 02/06/09 09:32 PM.
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Sidelock
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I agree the the majority of nail stubs used for Forging stub barrels were of the used variety. I can say this because I have had the opportunity to examine a specimen similar to that illustrated in Akehurst book.
This a subject I have researched in the past. Here a couple of interesting findings:
1/ The gun makers of the period used only the best British made horse shoe nail stubs for barrel forging. This was because they were produced from Iron smelted from imported Sweedish ore. The imported ore was for all practical purposes pure iron. Thus by using selected nail stubs the risk of contamination from undesireable elements was minimised. William Greener describes the importance of sorting of nail stubs to eliminate those made from malleable iron. In addition he also desribes the cleaning of the stubs to eliminate contaminates prior to welding.
2/The gunmakers observed that pulled nails were a lot harder than when new. This was important to them because this was property they wanted to develope in their finished barrels. This increase in hardness we know today as, work hardening.The barrel makers learned to recreate the increase in hardness by cold hammering after the barrels were welded. From some Birmingham price schedules, horse nails were one of the cheapest products that could be purchased from the mills. I have often speculated that the "pulled nail" may have been a combination of pulled and new nails to supplement demand. Pete
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Sidelock
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HOmeless, there is a big reward for finding it .
I hear it is buried in Amanutjobs garden.
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Sidelock
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Thanks, guys for a most worthwhile thread. This is great stuff!
[IMG]
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
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...and the only way to get there is on a flying Persian rug.
Pete I'm thinking there was allot of horseshoeing going on back then.
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Sidelock
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While we're on the subject of obscure and meaningless pattern welded barrels, I think this might be what Greener called 'Laminated Damascus'  c. 1880s C.G. Bonehill 12b   Note the linear rather than crolle pattern
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Sidelock
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Here is a nice Greener Laminated on my Greener "Trap Gun". I shot a round of Sporting with it yesterday. This gun belonged to Mr. H.H. Crane of Syracuse NY and inscribed as such. He owned a large lumber yard there into the 1880's or longer 
Last edited by Stallones; 02/07/09 10:54 AM.
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Sidelock
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Thanks Leighton. Your barrels demonstrate a couple of interesting things. The thicker breech segment of the right barrel is apparent in the difference in the colouring. It is not Greener's 'Silver Steel' but the usual British Laminated Steel which is a "puddled" mixture of as much as 4 parts steel to 1 part iron, and produces a mosaic pattern rather than the linear pattern shown above. Here is 'Silver Steel' that Craig refinished 
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Sidelock
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Picked up Akehurst's Game Guns & Rifles from our library. Unfortunately, the images are not of adequate resolution to scan and reproduce (and it's still in Copyright ) But this helps "Stub Damascus"...was made from a quantity of old files, heated red hot and rendered hard and brittle by quenching in cold water, after which they were pounded to the size of No 5 shot and a proportion of 15 lb of these added to 25 lb of stubs. The mixture was fused together on the bed of an air-furnace, hammered to condense the metal and rolled into rods 3/8 inch square. These rods were twisted and treated as for Damascus, the effect being of a mottled twist. Despite W.W. still using the term in 1907, it certainly must have been an early English damascus product, and likely looks like laminated steel (with alot less steel!)
Last edited by revdocdrew; 02/09/09 05:23 PM.
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More pearls from Akehurst "Wilkinson and Son, at the Great Exhibiton of 1851, showed a series of exhibits demonstrating the forging of barrels and including Damascus twist made from 21 alternate bars of iron and steel which were then welded, drawn out by rolling to a square rod, twisted and then flattened; two or three rods were then welded together, wound round a mandril and forged as before. They also showed a specimen composed of two bars of 48 alternations of iron and steel, a specimen called 'chain twist', and called 'steel Damascus' and a finished barrel composed of seven different kinds of twist." SEVEN KINDS OF TWIST?!? 
Last edited by revdocdrew; 02/09/09 07:30 PM.
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Sidelock
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My knowledge of Damascus is twisted worse than ever...
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