doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com New Damascus Knowledge Website

I've asked a few modern metalsmiths if they could produce Damascus barrels with words spelled in them and they said 'we could but we're not interested in doing it'.

My opinion is they think they could but really couldn't. I think they have an idea of how it is done but have no real experience and none of the associated learning curve that goes along with it.

Kinda like how I think I could be a Forward for the Lakers since I understand the basic concept of basketball.

Rev: For the Ferlach info, you might contact Johann Fanzoj, the Austrian gunmaker. He used to post here, but I haven't heard from him for a couple of years. He is a very likeable sort and could probably help, as his Family has been making guns for several hundred years.MDC

Thanks MD (My PM function STILL doesn't work )

A couple of new 'chapters' up on the website
Damascus Anomalies or Barrels Behaving Badly
The Story of the Walloons (who may have been the primary 'carriers' of pattern welded barrel technology throughout the world)
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfg2hmx7_186fpmvhzsb

And HUGE news Gloria a Dios-looks like we've got access to the damascus sample display behind the glass case in the Ferlach museum, and someone to take pictures!
Unfortunately, I've not heard back from the Birmingham Proof House, Greener, nor the Birmingham Industrial Museum (now called ThinkTank) so the search for the English Damascus Rosetta Stone goes on

Perhaps a niave question, but....

WHY can't new Damascus barrels be manfactured if there is suitable demand? Is it just a cost issue?

JERRY

Clearly by the late 1800s both Liege and Birmingham were producing 'machine made' Damascus, but it was still highly labor intensive. Some of the bladesmiths have experimented with pattern welded tubes, but I am aware of no one who knows how to make them today. I'd sure like to see someone start, but can't imagine it could be commercially viable, much less 'Tort proof.'

Not sure if this is any help to modern mfg, however:

Some bit ago, a German-resident Euro-gun scholar of a technical and journalistic background, and i were discussing this problem: the recreating even simple Damascus.

As he had visited the German gun mfg industry in a professional capacity, and was up to date on their methods, he could answer pretty obscure questions, including the schnapps intake per hour, required to give an engraver that solid stance and steady hand.

We'd both read the then 'new' scholarship books on Damascus, and so were conversant with the process of forging up a patterned 'block', from which slabs could cut for further work. Since that mass of Damascus could be formed, I asked him if a properly shaped and constituted raw patterned Damascus 'slug' could be run thru a hammer-forging barrel machine.

He believed that technically, there was no reason that bbl blanks couldn't be formed. As we developed the topic, we agreed that while it may not form the fine twisted wire patterns, there was certainly the opportunity there to begin exploring the process necessary for successful and sound pattern'd bbl's.

I add this to the Damascus discussion, only because there may be someone[s] in the future who will have the artisinal skill, metallurgical know-how, and artistic vision to attempt the process, even experimentally.

All the Best,

I'm aware that some/many rifle barrels are now hammer-forged from a shorter hollow tube using a mandrel. Are any shotgun barrels curently manufactured using similar technoogy?

JERRY

That is exactly the process the fellow and I discussed back then, with the idea to substitute a hollow Damascus 'slug'. At the time, shotgun bbl hammer-forging was being used by the German gun industry, but not as world-wide as it apparently is now. I have read more recently that shotgun bbls are routinely mfg'd in this manner, to the extent of having complete finished interior dimensions, just as rifle bbls have been done for some time.

My informant said at the time, that there were some Swedish blacksmiths who could make bigger 'batches' consistently. Since then, there has been a veritable retail Damascus explosion, to the point that mass production of that steel in one quality or another appears to be routine. As well, neither of us had but the sketchiest idea of the metallurgical properties necessary for the industrial 'steel-squishing' process

However, I would leave any further info about modern Damascus mfg and commercial practices to the knife makers aboard, or others who are professionally conversant with the field. I just don't know anymore than stated here.

As the good Dr Freud is reputed to have said, "It's chust a theory." ;~`)

Greg,

You are probably aware that in higher-end custom Damascus knives, the steel-pounders have been doing alphabetical patterns for a while. However, to make steel ribbons and forge them into a twisty bbl? Sounds like a steep and long learning curve to me.

In some drawings of the traditional method of mfg, it seems to me that more than one person was involved at the forge. The handling and feeding the raw material thru the entire manual process, to the complete forge-welded rough tube coming off the anvil or mandrel or otherwise doesn't sound like it could be learned as easy as a ten-minute lesson in driving driving assembly line fasteners.

Given the prices given for lettered-Damascus custom knives, I wonder how much money it would take to tempt an adventurous [and profit motivated fellow] to go the forge with bbl's in mind?

Apparently not enough, so far.

Perhaps the idea of hydraulic hammer forging a billet of twisty stuff into a bbl may eventually prove to be feasible, or not. However, it seems to me that it might be worth the trouble for an interested party to give it a whirl. Maybe a Ferlacher? You'd know for shure that it VOULD be von gutt barrel, ja? ;~`)