How did they do that- surface finish on iron

[David R. Pennington]

How did they do it? Hand forging iron mounts, after the forging and file work, how would 18th century gunsmith achieve final surface finish. I know sandpaper (glass paper) is historic but I can't imagine a gunsmith on the frontier had access to it. How do you get from filed surface to a polished surface with historic techniques? I have tried burnishing but seems difficult to get all the file marks out. Any ideas? I tried to post some photos but I am tchno. challenged.

[bob in the woods]

Looks good to me. Weren't a lot of items just fine filed, and left at that ? Or was emery , or pumice in oil used to polish ?    I have tried the abrasive slurry approach, and it worked well.

[J. Talbert]

They used abrasive stones for sharpening.  I,ve used modern synthetic stones for polishing.  I'm guessing they may have used certain stones for polishing also.

Jeff

[David R. Pennington]

Stones would seem a natural progression. I have a big slipstone that would work on irregular shapes. I'll try it.

[J. Talbert]

To elaborate... You can buy die polishing stones from (the name of the outfit escapes me at the moment), that are just soft enough that, with use,  they will conform to the shape of that which you are polishing.
They come in a wide assortment of hardnesses and grits for many applications.  I'll post the name of the place when I think of it or find the invoice.

By the way David, your buttplate forging looks excellent.  A little thick at the bottom but I assume you're not finished filing just yet.

Jeff

[Meteorman]

Gesswein.

[Jim Kibler]

I would expect good work to have been filed a little more cleanly than that you have pictured.  Not every tiny bit of pitting scale etc. need be removed, but I believe a little finer finish would be more appropriate if working from a historical perspective.  After fine filing, stones can be used as previously mentioned.  Also loose abrasives can be used on leather or a felt pad with oil.  It's probably safe to say that a fine filed surface was sometimes considered good enough.  Also when a higher polish is encountered on original work, it is common to still see file marks behind the finer finsh.  It certainly doesn't need to be polished to the mirror finish you sometimes see on modern work.  One final thing to consider is that it's sometimes best to wait until the butplated is installed before it's finish filed and polished. 

[David R. Pennington]

Thanks for the input. Experimented some with stoning out file marks and then burnishing with back side of a gouge. I believe this would produce a good finish with some practice. I don't want a polished "factory finished" look.  My next decision will be what finish to use. To brown or not to brown? This will be totally iron mounted early southern style walnut stock. Any input on finishing the metal?

[rich pierce]

Pumice in oil gives a nice soft sheen.  You can use stiff felt, stiff leather, or soft wood to rub the pumice and oil on the steel.

[Bill of the 45th]

Apprentice's were used for the manual grunt work of jobs like polishing.  Get four or five of them about 12 or 13, and don't worry too much about the child labor laws.  Indentured servants also work well to get that kind of work done.
It's one of those things we forget.  The Master Gunsmith in a great number of cases was able to delegate much of the mundane work.
Bill

[flintriflesmith]

Think of this as a side bar to this thread:

In the original post David wrote, "I know sandpaper (glass paper) is historic but I can't imagine a gunsmith on the frontier had access to it."
The VAST majority of gun making was not done "on the frontier." Gunshops were in cities and small towns along the trade routes to the frontier. The same trade network that supplied imported locks, rasps, files, crucibles, lead and powder could deliver whatever pumice, emery, or abrasive paper a smith felt he needed.

What few gunsmiths worked on the actual frontier were busy repairing guns with an occasional restocking or assembly of a components gun thrown in.

Gary

[ottawa]

how about diffrent grades of sand stone ? ( different  coarseness) I have used it to polish knife blades not to a show room buff job but to a medium to fine sanding

[Jay Close]

From a blacksmith/whitesmith perspective I'll add this about polishing iron: "Polish" is often more about the evenness of texture than the actual coarseness of the texture. The eye will read an even texture as polished while a more random texture that is finer will still look unpolished. 

When stuff I make has got to be carefully file polished it goes overnight into a vinegar bath to cut most of the firescale and help preserve my files. If I've done my job at the forge things can be cross filed pretty fast with a 10 or 12 inch bastard file. A few small random forge blacks are OK in my book, but I don't want the piece to look speckled.

Broad flat surfaces (like the flats of a barrel?) are cross filed, and then coarsely drawfiled and then the top skimmed with a fine file to remove the "rag" on the surface and  give a bit more reflection, but the underlying coarse filing can still be seen. The goal is to be able to track your drawfile marks from one end of the flat to the other........not likely on a barrel flat, but a worthy goal.

Speaking generally, I think we moderns are fussier about polish than most of the old trades people, but they knew how to give the impression of high polish.

[dannybb55]

Does anyone else us a treadle stone? I have one that has a 2 foot wheel by 3 inches wide. It takes quite a bit of after the vinegar bath has removed the scale.
                                                          Danny

[Chris Treichel]

If you look at older depictions of armourers shops in Europe you see an entire guild system devoted to polishing... They look to be using all kinds of different size wheels from small to man size which probably had polishing compound on them. 

[Stophel]

Every old gun I have seen in person shows file marks in the metal.  Only the FINEST high-grade European guns may show polishing to the point of removing all visible file marks.

Also remember that MOST PEOPLE WON'T NOTICE.  We as gunsmiths are probably far more attuned to detail than most.  I never cease to be stunned by what most people simply cannot see.  I may find something glaringly obvious, yet others are totally oblivious.

[Chris Treichel]

http://www.nuernberger-hausbuecher.de/index.php?do=query&mo=4&rs=1&tt=prs-jobnorm&tm=Harnischpolierer

took me a while to find these pictures again... here are a few of the guildmembers of Nuremberg whose profession was armour polisher.  Anyway... never seen any pictures of anything like that this side of the ocean.

[blunderbuss]

 

  They would grease leather and use different sizes of grit much like you'd
 use pumice

[Bennypapa]

  They would grease leather and use different sizes of grit much like you'd
 use pumice

I was just about to ask what those little bags and pots with brush handles sticking out of them were. Thank you for answering my question.

I guess the large wheels work on the same idea ie: covered in leather and using an oil or grease/grit polishing medium??

[Chris Treichel]

I use a similar method for stropping blades (carving knives and chisels) by glueing a piece of leather to a piece of maple and then rubbing polishing compound into it.  It gets the cutting area very shiny... no reason with a lot of sweat and elbow grease you couldn't polish any other piece of metal to a very high luster.  But again I have no idea if they used these methods back then in Gun building this side of the ocean.  Heck the supplies would have been available but why go through the trouble?