Faux 'Damascus' barrels?

[Tenn Hills Guy]

What techniques do you Gents know of to create the damascus barrel look.  Saw a pic of one which was great. 

[doug]

    about the only thing I can think of would be to wrap a piece of cotton string around the barrel in a spiral pattern and use a rusting solution.  The string will hold the rusting solution damp longer and rust deeper.  It would still give a mediocre result compared to real damascus

cheers Doug

[elk killer]

you can also coat the barrel with parafin wax,,,draw the design with a pencil threw the wax,,,then carfully,,very CAREFULLY,,put battery acid in the cuts,,,let it work awhile,,then wash the whole mess off,,and nutrualize it,,,then brown the barrel,,,has varied results,,,

[Mike R]

I have created a good-looking faux damascus look on sword and knife blades by streaking Frenchs mustard on with a fingertip.  I would think you could do it with a barrel by spiraling the fingertip action around it.  I just apply the mustard, let sit a short time, and wash off.  I do not know how "permanent" that look is, however. 

[Acer Saccharum]

In the etching business they make what is  called 'resist'. It is a blend of beeswax, asphaltum and solvent. You paint it on and when dry, you can trace through to bright metal with a stylus. Apply acid to cut the exposed steel.

Maybe this 'resist' could be brushed on with a feather or something to get a more random look. I dunno. never tried it.

[Tenn Hills Guy]

Wish I had bookmarked the pic I saw!  It was one offered for sale and the pic made it look 'real'.  I have two old wrapped barrel shotguns and love the Damascus look.  Period wise, when did the originals stop using forged barrels?

[doug]

   Period wise, when did the originals stop using forged barrels?

     Depends on the country.  I have a John Moll barrel that is conspicously wrought iron and dates presumably no later than 1820 if it was by his son.  I also know that the 1842 Springfields were made from flat steel formed into a tube and had a longitudinal forge weld seam in them.   The British sporting rifles I own seem to have been made from true damascus (ie multiple welded and spiral wrapped pieces) right up until the 1860 while their military rifles had rolled barrels after the mid 1850s.  While steel barrels began to replace damascus barrels in cartridge shotguns by the 1890s, some were still being used (perhaps old stock) until the 1930s.

cheers Doug

[Daryl]

This plain pattern on an H. Whall ball and shot gun might be easiest to emulate.

[karwelis]

i wrapped my barrel with wrags soaked in viniger to get this effect

karwelis

[Dphariss]

Wish I had bookmarked the pic I saw!  It was one offered for sale and the pic made it look 'real'.  I have two old wrapped barrel shotguns and love the Damascus look.  Period wise, when did the originals stop using forged barrels?

The British did not give up on Damascus for quite some time. Best quality English damascus was equal to Whitworth steel in strength.

Dan

[alex e.]

Someone I know  has made a faux finish wrapping with dental floss & nitric acid?? but I cannot remember all the details..

[Tenn Hills Guy]

Both pics of your work are nice and give the appearance of the real thing.  It would appear there are a number of workable solutions-no pun intended- to create the 'Damascus' look.  Raises another question though, semantics!  What would be the correct term? I think Damascus refers to the original, supposedly lost art of old (reminded here of the story about the guy who made the original Bowie knives and had re-invented the original process-supposedly had forgotten how he did it in his later years when attempting to teach his son....).  Guess forged or wrapped  would be more correct for later work. 

[doug]

Raises another question though, semantics!  What would be the correct term? I think Damascus refers to the original, supposedly lost art of old   

     Sort of depends where you are.  A friend in England prefers the term damascene which is actually gold or silver patterns inlaid into the iron/steel.  In this area, all of the various patterns are commonly referred to as damascus while I think Greener refers to the plain pattern such as Daryl illustrated , as being twist (because it was twisted around a mandrel) versus damascus which was formed from a skelp which was twisted before spiral wrapping and gave a figure 8 pattern within the basic spiral pattern.  Then there is the style used in French muskets at least for a while, in which sheets of metal were layered pancake fashion and resulted in a plywood like appearance.
     I think if one wanted to fuss about it, simply calling it pattern welded would cover a multitude of sins.

     Back to the original question, I had forgotten that I once inadvertently created a spiral pattern on a rifle barrel by wrapping it with a strip of cotton cloth and wetting that down with rusting solution.  I had started out trying to rust the barrel but because I was carding dry, kept carding off all of the rust.  So I tore several long strips of cotton about 3/4" wide and spiral wrapped them around the barrel with about 1/3 overlap.  Soaked that in rusting solution (mercuric chloride etc as per Foxfire 5) for a day or two.  The overlap area pitted lightly because it stayed wet longer each time after wetting, and left a spiral line down the barrel.

cheers Doug