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

All men stand on the shoulders of their predecessors even if most of the descendents are organized to fight like cats and dogs. There are universals but what we share in common so frequently gets in the way of a good solid foundation of misunderstanding, villification, and of course the getting of the daily bread that we don't like to admit that anyone else had a better idea, leave alone a civilization. We are all Yahoos but only me and mine are The People.

jack

We might owe the Chinese for the earliest Damascus they were forging steel blades in the 4th and 5th century and had the best steels. Japan was the country that took it and refined it. During the Heian period(794-1185) the japanese made great progress improving the imported steelworking techniques. It was in the Kamakura period (11858-3333) that they refined the technique of using high carbon steel folded over low carbon steel to make steel of great strength. The first damascus was designed for strength not beauty. The Japanese steel was folded into a very fine grain,i have never seen any that was twisted. I believe twisting it for designs was most likely a European invention, don't realy know.
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W.W. Greener in "Modern Breech-Loaders" states on p. 101 that "Barrels were first grooved or rifled at Vienna, about the year 1498." Coupled with p. 77-78, "Mr. Hallam, referring to the authority of an Arabic author, infers that there is no question that the knowledge of gunpower was introduced into Europe through the meands of Saracens, before the middle of the thirteenth century; and no doubt its use then was more for fireworks than as an artilierist projectile force. There is good evidence, too, that the use of gunpowder was introduced into Spain by the Moors." And what kind of folk were the Moors? Anyway, if they rifiling to prevent fouling and using gunpower as an accelerate in the later part of the 15th century, then what type barrel were they utilizing?

" Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider." - Francis Bacon

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

“Something has been said about the chemical excellence of cast iron in ancient India, and about the high industrial development of the Gupta times, when India was looked to, even by Imperial Rome, as the most skilled of the nations in such chemical industries as dyeing, tanning, soap-making, glass and cement... By the sixth century the Hindus were far ahead of Europe in industrial chemistry; they were masters of calcinations, distillation, sublimation, steaming, fixation, the production of light without heat, the mixing of anesthetic and soporific powders, and the preparation of metallic salts, compounds and alloys. The tempering of steel was brought in ancient India to a perfection unknown in Europe till our own times; King Porus is said to have selected, as a specially valuable gift from Alexander*, not gold or silver, but thirty pounds of steel. The Moslems took much of this Hindu chemical science and industry to the Near East and Europe; the secret of manufacturing "Damascus" blades, for example, was taken by the Arabs from the Persians**, and by the Persians from India.”

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

Note to put this into historical perspective
*Alexander lived from 356-323 BC
** The conquest of Persia was 633-651 AD

I'm sure something can be said for allot of different cultures beating on a piece of Iron....
When we talk gun barrels it's the English barrel makers that took the art of Damascus gun barrel making to it's highest form.

All before were just stepping stones....did I tell you guys I saved money on my car insurance.



I bought a flying carpet....with a crOil pattern.

Great stuff guys.
M. Sache in "Damascus Steel, Myth, History, Technology Applications" states that BOTH pattern-welded Damascus AND wootz Damascus blades were first produced around 500 A.D.
In terms of shotgun barrels, it's going to be very important that we don't mix blade production techniques (folding laminates) with damascus barrel techniques (twisting laminates and welding the ribband edges.)

per http://www.memagazine.org/may07/features/straight/straight.html
the English were first introduced to the 'hand cannon' in 1429 at the siege of Orleans.

I'm going to go ahead and re-post some links for infro on Wootz steel, the first by a damascus expert at Iowa State:
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.html
Looks like it's vanadium and molybdenum that cause the damascene appearance of Wootz
http://met.iisc.ernet.in/~rangu/text.pdf
http://www.brisa.fi/wootz3.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel

Homeless:

You have made a funny that made me chuckle. I will be in Memphis at St. Jude in a week and I might just look you up to give you something.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

dbadcraig:

I usually don't trust web sources without a text, but that is interesting. So, would you say that cast iron barrels were being rifled in Vienna late in the 15th century?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

jOe: you'd probably get some argument from Rene Leclerc and Leopold Bernard (1832-1867) who were canoniers and barrel makers in Paris. Bernard's company manufactured firearms and finest damascus barrels until 1890.

And here is a section of a book discussing cast iron cannon barrel and damascus gun barrel production. It states that damascus gun barrels were being produced in Turkey by the late 1500s
http://books.google.com/books?id=X7e8rHL...hZJqJw#PPA80,M1

Drew-

Agreed, but don't you think the material iron/steel in question and concepts for working the materials are most likely related? It would stand to reason early barrel makers were drawn from the ranks of those who had access to and were schooled and skilled in working in those particular materials. This may have also formed the basis for the common esthetic you noted in your earlier posts.

While blades may be folded and barrels twisted, lamination is the common technique and one that would appear to have originated hundreds of years before damascus shotgun barrel production.

Doug