Hi Friends,
Thank you all for your interest and comments. I appreciate them very much. The pistols were work but not a labor. Aside from expressing affection for my brother, they provided me with an incredible learning experience concerning pistol design and the British gun trade. I wanted to master (as well as I could) many of the different trades that composed the industry in the 18th century. I tried to pay attention to every detail I could think of. For example, the ramrod tips were turned from horn of a species of African antelope (Gemsbok I think) supplied by a friend who had been on safari. That was easy to figure out but what did the gunmakers do with the other end of the ramrods? You rarely see photos or descriptions of that detail. It took some digging but I eventually located photos of rods from pistols and used those details to fashion the tips and worms. The powder flask was another detail. I made a simple but historically correct one-way flask. Two-way flasks had a compartment for balls and 3-way had compartments for both balls and flints. I originally thought the flask valve would be a simple sheet of brass that slide over the inside of the top to close the hole. However, it occurred to me that as powder grains inevitably built up fouling between the valve and the top, the valve would stick. I have an original early 19th century brass flask that I disassembled to examine the parts. Sure enough, the hole has a slight collar around it on the inside so the valve is elevated and does not touch the inside of the top. I used that information to build my flask and it works flawlessly. Learning those kinds of details was priceless.
The "twist" finish on the barrels is easy in concept but tedious in execution. I studied many photos of English twist and stub twist barrels (they were not Damascus twist - in the 18th century) and selected a Manton pistol barrel as a model. I polished the barrels with 1500 grit paper and degreased them. Then, using the Manton barrel as a guide, I carefully painted the inverse of the pattern on the barrels with etching resist (standard asphaltum ground from jewelry suppliers). I practiced a bit on another barrel to develop the skill to mimic the real pattern. I used several brushes of different sizes. Once the ground was painted and dried, I sealed the muzzle with a cork and painted it with ground and then painted the breech plug. I placed the barrels in a glass baking dish and covered them with Ferric Chloride (circuit board etchant sold by Radio Shack). I soaked them for 30 minutes, then washed with water and again with water and baking soda. The resulting pattern was beautiful and could be used as is with no browning. In fact, if you just apply cold bluing to the barrels and sand it off the high spots, the result is spectacular. Next, I browned the barrels using Dixie's browning solution, which produces a much redder, coppery color than any of the other solutions. I carded the barrels using 1500 grit paper wrapped around a block of wood to remove rust from the high spots but keep the color in the low spots. After getting a light coppery color, I washed the barrels in water and then put them in the oven at 475 degrees F to deepen the bronze tones. After that, I rubbed beeswax on the warm barrels and buffed them. The brown may not turn out to be really durable but it doesn't matter because the underlying pattern is really nice without any browning and as it wears they will assume a nice old rubbed patina. Before choosing this method, I experimented with a number of techniques. I can tell you emphatically that painting the whole barrel with resist or some other coating and then scraping in a pattern is a waste of time. The resist doesn't scrape away cleanly, it is hard to follow the pattern around the barrel, and it almost always looks too machine like to be real.
With respect to casehardening, I simply use technique described by Jerry Huddleston. I casehardened all of the exposed steel rather than bluing it. All components were highly polished first. I loosely wrapped the lock plates and cocks with steel wire before placing them in the heat. Parts were packed in 75% bone charcoal and 25% wood charcoal from Brownells and then heated to 1450 degrees F for 90 minutes. They were quenched in clean rainwater. The pour is important. You don't want any air to hit the metal before it enters the quench. Therefore, you hold the crucible low over the water and quickly turn it over so the entire pack drops into the water as a unit. Once quenched, the parts were heat soaked at 490 degrees F to temper them and deepen the bronze colors. The wire wrap helps to create more blues at each point where it touches the part. The frizzens were tempered to only 400 degrees but the toes were then heated to blue with a propane torch. That is all there was to it.
Again thanks for all your interest and comments.
dave
