Inlaying wedding bands in gun barrels.(pictures fixed)

[Rolf]

I'm no expert on the subject. This is my first attempt. I inlayed 3 pure silver wedding bands on a pistol barrel and the results look good. This is a description on how I did it. I'm hoping the more experienced builders will add their tip and comments.


1 Tools used.
I made the chisels with the Lindsay sharpening system.
1.Undercut chisel (Baptist gold inlay chisel jig)
2.Small flat chisel without heel  (flat and knife chisel jig)
3.Jeweler's saw with no.0 blade.


2.Cutting the inlay channel.
The channel was made by doing several parallel saw cuts the height of the saw blade (0.024”). The thin slivers of metal were broken off with a knife and the bottom filed clean.


3. Undercutting the channel.
I undercut the channel until I could see the edges upset. This took only a couple of raps on the undercut chisel. Remember to stop the undercut before you reach the edge of the barrel flat.



4.  Raising barbs on the bottom of the channel.
If you hammer the metal into the channel without raising barbs, it elongates without filling the undercuts. The barbs are raised with a flat chisel without a heel. If you try it with a heeled chisel the barbs will break off. The barbs are raised from opposing directions so they function like Velcro when you hammer the metal down.






5.Filling the channel .
Anneal the metal, hammer it down and file off the excess. The main challenge here is deciding what size of wire to use. I used 0.8” pure silver wire. This created a lot of waste metal that had to be filed off. No big problem with silver. The 3 wedding band cost me about $7 in silver. I'd hate to waste that much gold. Does anyone have a formula for estimating wire size needed?




Best regards
Rolfkt

[bluenoser]

Thanks for the demo.  I had been wondering how this was done.

It seems to me, you could use the formula for the area of a circle to calculate the diameter of wire  required.  The formula is pi (3.14159.....) multiplied by the square of the radius.  Your target would be a little more than the cross sectional area of the slot, which is depth times width plus a little for the undercuts.

Once you have the cross sectional area of the slot, you can calculate the diameter of the wire using the following formula.

Dia = 2 x the square root of (cross sectional area/pi)

The actual diameter used would have to be a little larger to allow for elongation and squeeze out.

Thanks again for the demo
Laurie

[RobertS]

Great tutorial, sooner or later I'd like to try this.  Thanks!

[Dean D.]

Great tutorial, thanks for sharing it with us!

Have you thought about using sheet silver instead of round wire?  Fine silver sheet is available in many places.  I would think sawing or snipping strips from a sheet would be much more economical.  This company carries fine sheet up to 20 ga. (0.32" thick):
http://www.silversupplies.com/catalog/metals/fine_silver/sheet.shtml

Thanks again!  I'll have to think of trying this out myself 

[Jerry V Lape]

I have never done this but have contemplated it.   Since you have, may I ask if you think your depth of cut was sufficient or could it have been done shallower?  I was looking at the cut compared to the dovetail for the sight and it seems less depth could be sufficient since no real structural issues are involved.  Guess I have always been somewhat concerned about reduction of strength around the breech area. 

[Rolf]

I talked to an engraver. He said  0.02 was the thinnest he would recommend. According to him, the main problem with thinner inlays is that its easiy to get the burrs to high. When you hammer down the metal, they will protrude through the inlay.

Best regards

Rolfkt

[Jerry V Lape]

Rolfkt, Thank you for the reply.  I didn't think about the need to conceal the teeth holding the inlay.  Very nice tutorial. 

[Curtis]

Rolfkt, Thanks for the excellent tutorial!  Looks like your first try turned out great.  We very much appreciate you taking the time to document and post it.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Nice job.  You're going to wish you'd used gold...the silver will tarnish black with the first firing.

[Rolf]

 I would have loved to use gold, but it's too expensive to experiment with. The  pistol I tried it out on is the "dress rehearsal" for the pair of pistols with silver fittings I'm building.

I am toying with the idea using gold on these pistols. How deep is the channel on the weddingbands you have done?

Best regards

Rolfkt

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I've only inlayed gold in one barrel, 22 years ago, and it was for a friend who supplied the gold.  He acquired it in the form of a wedding band that he bought in a pawn shop in the West Indies during the 60's.  It is likely only 10 karat and I cut the pieces from the ring, and annealed it prior to inlaying it in the cuts.  I did not measure the recesses but I remember them being very shallow...perhaps  .015" - .020" deep max.  I still use bits of that old ring for the vertical bar in an English express type rear sight.  The beauty of it is that it stays beautiful forever.  And you can see by the "patina" that the rifle has been well used.

[Dave B]

Rolfkt,
Great tutorial, Thanks for sharing. I Have done several barrels with gold inlay bands and the first was a night mare. I used 14kt gold bezel that I had cut in half to make it narrower.  The next time around I used 24 kt gold and it was much easier. I was told a trick to doing bands on Octagon barrels is to make your under cuts only up to the corner of the flats, leaving a section of metal not under cut. this will lock the gold in so when you pound the gold down on the adjacent flat it wont bulge the gold back out on the previous flat. The gold stretches like tooth paste being squeezed from a tube when you strike it with a hammer. Not having this tip meant I would tap on one side to flatten the bulge then tap the other side to flatten the bulge back where it wasn't so bad. The Teeth being raised so they point away from the corner is also helpful to reduce this tendency.