A friend of mine is rebrowning my Westley Richards try gun barrels. He sent me a photo of them mostly finished with the browning and etching. I've owned and seen lots of damascus barrels and I haven't seen any with the jagged lines this one has.

Mike: I believe that is something very much like Greener's "Silver Steel".
Yours is 2 Iron - close up and enhanced



3 Iron "Silver Steel"



3 Iron "Browned" by Paul Stevens



More infro here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hph1QPAVDHd_KvHLrejKVykigwGgvMLFl4K6Ru6Dcig/edit

Looks like black and white rather than brown, to me...
JR

He says the photos make it look blacker than it is. Says it's more of a brown color.

Finally able to get the correct light so that the phone would take a true color photo.

Dang that looks bad. Surely that's yet to be carded and boiled...
JR

Of course. Last etching before carding and it's not getting boiled. Boiling turns it black. Proper British damascus should be brown. lol

The rusting looks very even and fine grained, with considerable contrast already. They should look great after etching.

Mike's barrels demonstrate that with most doubles with a top rib extension (esp. if the top rib contributes to a bolt lock-up) the extension is a separate segment. AND the challenges of coloring steel.



The extension was usually indexed in some manner with a screw

L.C. Smith which was brazed





Parker GH with poorly matched D4. On refinishing the higher carbon screw stained much more darkly



Some extensions on damascus barrels were a non-twisted (layered) laminate, others solid steel; Parker Lifter Bernard barrel with steel extension which stained more darkly



The iron component of pattern welded rods was no doubt wrought iron. The steel was either Bessemer/Decarbonized (carbon .06 - .1%) or 1002 - 1005 low carbon low alloy steel.
I've done composition analysis on ONE segment of rib, a c. 1912 Lefever Arms Co. DS, and it was AISI 1011.

So coloring different composition steel was and is real challenge. Hopefully Mike will post the final results.

I'll take black and white, regardless of what's proper. Something about brown damascus that just hits me wrong. I have seen some very dark brown damascus that wasn't too bad, though.
JR

I have a Pape with very dark brown color. Almost black but differently brown. Very nice looking. My other Pape is more
Medium brown. I wish it too was darker.

Almost finished. [img]https://imgur.com/s5zKg7h[/img]

Almost finished.

Looks really good Mike!

I think so as well. I do wish the doll's head would have came out closer to the barrel color.