doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Opinions on who best replicates case colors

Another question is, is tempering even necessary if quench temps are below critical as Gaddy recommended? It appears abrasion (due to normal cleaning/rubbing over time) is more significant than sunlight exposure. I'm assuming after the lacquer has been rubbed away.

This is what I believe, and no one else has to.
Energy loosens the bolts in the truss.
Energy absorbed into the bird cage wires allows reforming to more stable variants.

I believe light can change colors.

Now there is a middle ground here as well.

There are fish that when caught are fantastically brilliant in color, and begin fading as soon as they reach the surface.

There are polymorphs that are short lived as well.

I have done experiments where the end product slowly transformed into a different polymorph at room temp, in ambient light. We would Mass spec the compound as soon as created, and by an hour later, they reverted to another form.

Sometimes they were formed in some pretty harsh environments.

No one has ever explained why iron compounds can't do the same thing. Some Lead and Tin compounds do absolutely.

So, the middle of the road can say right after quench all the unstable compounds head toward the gate, and by the time they are delivered, the overall color of the piece has morphed to a "relatively stable state".
But not quite the same as when first removed from the quench.

Bill- until we can go back in time, we can't really say that we know for sure they look the same as when made.

Reminds me of the carrot colored family, it happened so gradually they never noticed they were turning orange due to some weird nutrient absorption thing.

And really, everything is headed toward entropy.

It can't be a coincidence that a man posted here that he had to recolor display pieces because of light damage. Maybe the polymorphs of that company's color process are light unstable, and other companies conditions of coloring make their's not light sensitive.

Myself, I wouldn't mind if some of that turquoise crap turned Ithaca robin's egg blue after a time.

If what you say is true about differing temperatures being able to create different colors, do we need polymorphs. I suspect quenching to create colors is actually poor heat treating practice. I think the dunking is intended to be a random or partially random interrupted quench. Maybe, that's how the same piece can have surface effects that're typically created at different temps, maybe.

I don't think you have to carburize steel to show different colors. I think you can take a torch to just about any polished steel and create temper colors, iron oxide in varying layer thickness.

The other thing I'm not quite grasping is the thought that you're heat treating iron oxide in a similar way that steel is heat treated for hardness. I think iron oxide can exist in atypical forms, but aren't they very to extremely rare? As mentioned a bit ago, are iron oxides taking an atypical polymorphic crystalline form because of stored energy from a reaction, or was it just stacked up that way by a form that's since been removed?

Edit to add that I can appreciate that you're discussing how short lived some of these structures may be.

Again, thanks for going to the trouble to introduce some "heavy" ideas into the conversation about fading case colors. Very thought provoking, CZ.

I may lack understanding to the extent that I missed it, but did you address why the polymorphs that fade in color, always fade to a duller shade of the same color, but never change to a different color? They always fade into oblivion when continued abrasion enters the picture.

Regarding this statement, "I have done experiments where the end product slowly transformed into a different polymorph at room temp, in ambient light. We would Mass spec the compound as soon as created, and by an hour later, they reverted to another form." ...........Did you try the same experiment to see if it would transform so drastically in darkness? Wouldn't that be the only way to know that light was the "culprit"?

SRH

Stan- We were attempting to make inorganic polymers for the military. Because Tin and Lead are big atoms with lots of ways to attach other arrangements of atoms, many of our experiments created unstable arrangements.
We were trying to find the stable, polymeric units that we could string together. Like let's say, a Tin or lead based, pvc like material. PVC is very versatile. But, with carbon atoms involved, can also be damaged by radiation.
Imagine a paint that protected a fighter jet from an EMP burst. That was one of the supporting ideas.

In some of our experiments, A little light energy, and what was there this morning was something else tonight.
Or, a hot day, would break the bonds. Some stuff is just delicate that way.
Remember, I equate all energy as energy. Heat, light, pressure, whatever. If it stimulates an atom, it's energy.

I would encourage anyone doing any coloring to make a bunch of small slab samples, and expose them to bright light for a few months.

I have been intrigued by those comments for years now, but have no facilities to test them.

In science, it's OK to re prove prior experiments. No one gets mad. If the science was good to start with, then repeating it will give the same results.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least that some of the deep blue, black polymorphs are tough as corundum. And their differently reflecting cousins, not so much.

I don't believe a Krieghoff Essencia will look like a peacock 100 years from now.

They are even saying that the Sistine Chapel was gaudy bright when first painted so as to see the characters better from the floor.

But I'm also OK with someone saying, "You are full of crap!", as long as they can reasonably say, "Here's why."

And moving into the applied world, where not burning ourself dominates over what color did we get,

I have always felt that people could do better on their placement of color. Jigging, packing, heat sinking, coatings, whatever, I have felt for some time that where color is placed brings the most value to the practice. And is a mechanical process, easily fiddled with by practitioners.

So, visual appeal or historical duplication, has more realizable value than just wear resistance. These implements aren't seeing the same use or environment that they were used in 100+ years ago.

This thread is taking a little of a turn, sorry if this post is a little OT from the direction, but photobucket being down all day yesterday delayed me in getting these photos uploaded.

This may be of interest to some.

This particular VH was fitted with a single trigger that was a poor copy of a miller trigger. The owner wanted it converted back to double triggers. This required the replacement and fitting of the trigger plate. New screws, some engraving touchup. And then recoloring and aging back of the colors to match the rest of the frame since it was a 85-90% original gun in the color category.

Original colors on the side of the frame.



Replacement trigger plate and new screws fitted to frame.



Replacement trigger plate installed after engraving touched up with new colors.



Replacement trigger plate on the frame with colors aged back to match.

Mr. Dudley, that's really a good job. I have not searched the rest of the posts, but who did the recolor on the replacement trigger plate ?

This gun and the other restored examples i have shown were all done by Turnbull. In the past 2 years.

Thank you, Brian.

SRH