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

Thanks kray, and I'd very much like to add an ultra close-up of your brls to the PictureTrail!
Good barrel, receiver, and wood photographs are difficult to take. The closer you can get, the better. The best backgrounds are solid (not patterned) light grey or light blue. It's hard not to get a flash reflection when the photograph is taken inside, so photos are best when taken with filtered sun (just slightly overcast) outside. OR use a sheet of Kleenex over the flash. Orient the barrels left to right (horizontal) rather than on diagonal (hard to crop) and NOT looking from breech end toward muzzle. And be sure and use the 'close up' function on your digital camera. Please try again

Unfortunately, the Damascus OCD Intervention Team seems to have failed, and I've made another PictureTrail album: Arabesque and Damascus Steel
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery.fcgi?p=999&gid=18112027
Some additional resources should arrive soon on Inter-Library loan, and I wanted to get all the Wootz, calligraphy, and oriental rug stuff together. More to follow and brain altering pharmaceuticals not required jOe!

Although Wootz/Balat/Crucible steel is not pattern welded, it may have been the inspiration for damascus steel, and found some neat reading here including the report of Maj. General Pavel Anossoff on "Bulat"

From http://met.iisc.ernet.in/~rangu/text.pdf

"Wootz...was coined when European travellers from the 17th century onward came across the making of steel by crucible processes in Southern India in the present day states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. Wootz was the Anglicization of 'ukku', the Kannada word for steel."

“Wootz was the first high-quality steel
made anywhere in the world. According
to reports of travelers to the East,
the Damascus swords were made
by forging small cakes of steel that
were manufactured in Southern India.
This steel was called wootz steel.
It was more than a thousand years before
steel as good was made in the West.”
-J. D. Verhoeven and A. Pendray, Muse, 1998

And from one of my favorites:

Gold is for the mistress- silver for the maid
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade
“Good” said the Baron, sitting in the hall,
“ But, Iron- Cold Iron, - is master of them all”.
-Rudyard Kipling

Need some help gentlemen. Raimey and I have been discussing Dig's great new book, and it was my hope that he would attach names to some of the English damascus patterns.
This pattern seems to be typical for high grade English guns-a small scroll Three Iron Crolle but with what looks like a weld line down the middle of each row of scrolls (making identifying the true ribband weld line quite difficult)





Was there a 'name' associated with this pattern? Thanks!

Don't know....was that bottom picture hy-jacked from Lewis and Arse in Kentucky ?

revdocdrew:

There is a very similar pattern in black & white in Charles Semmer's "Remington Double Shotguns" on page 272 defined as: "Style: Oxford 2 S.J. - Model 1882, Grade 4." If you have the text, have a look and let me know as I am on the hunt. Also, on page 271, "Style: Twist - Model 1889, Grade 2" has the repeating bands in a London style. I would venture to guess that the twist pattern is an even number of "steel" and iron. And your pattern is an odd multiple of "steel" and iron. What do you know about the Belgian pattern 3 Iron Crolle(number of braids & the like)?

In Dig's book on page 85, a "G Grade" looks to have the same repeating pattern but there is a lot of glare in the pic. Any "G Grade" Greener pics in your bag of tricks?

Last, in Greener's "The Gun" 9th edition on p. 235, "The true English Damascus barrel is prepared from three rods, twisted as described and put together as shown in the twisted riband, and is know technically as three-iron Damascus: the silver-steel Damascus is similarly made, but of different metal piled in a different order." So I now would guess that could be some variant of "Silver-Steel Damascus." Thoughts, waaaaay off base?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

RevdOc....I'm truly sorry for pooping on your Persian rugg theory.
Forgive me.

Just wait oh ye of little faith and deficiencies in right brain "holistic reasoning functions, transduction of visual and musical stimuli, spatial manipulation, and artistic ability..."
The Arabesque: Meaning and Transformation of an Ornament just got in on Inter-Library loan

Excellent observation Raimey-all the Remington damascus patterns are up on the 'Colt and Remington Damascus' album
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery.fcgi?p=999&gid=17067005

This is Ross' B Grade 1894 with fine "Three-stripe" "Oxford 4 S.J." The scrolls in the pattern on the Purdey are smaller, and a big however is the fact that Remington almost certainly obtained their damascus from Belgium. We've been able to identify several makers, but still don't know who 'S.J.' might have been. The search goes on.