how to fire blue barrels with soldered lugs and sights?

[rich pierce]

There are plenty of orders for trade guns and fowling pieces nicely blued in the mid-1700's.  Sir William Johnson for example who made gifts to Indians to secure and maintain their support during the F&I War.

2 possibilities come to mind for me- fire bluing by inserting a hot rod down the bore, or charcoal bluing.  This begs the question of whether sights and underlugs were soldered to the round portions of these barrels and if so, how the barrels were blued.  Any ideas?  I guess I should ask Jack Brooks.  Other folks have an idea?

[keweenaw]

Rich,

One can neither fire or charcoal blue a barrel that has soft soldered things on it.  Charcoal bluing takes 800 degrees, more or less, and a nice fire blue would take somewhere in the vicinity of 600 if I remember correctly both temperatures well above most common soft solders.  One could, however, solder on sights or lugs on a fire blued barrel.  You would just need to be very careful to clean only the areas under the lugs and to avoid runs in the flux (less of a problem with a rosin flux which is what would have been used in period.

Tom 

[Jim Kibler]

I can't speak for trade guns in particular, but I will say that it was standard practice to slightly dovetail underlugs to even the thinnest barrels and then braze them in place, on higher higher grade English fowling pieces.  I would fully expect trade guns to follow this practice.  On examples I've seen the dovetails are extremely shallow and material is raised up with a chisel a the ends.  This metal is clinched on the dovetail and seems to be used primarily just to hold the lug to the barrel during the brazing process.  When the lugs were attached to the barrels during the manufacturing process is quite important.  Brazing on a finished thin walled fowler barrel is inviting problems.

Jim

[bob in the woods]

I fire blued a fowler oct/round barrel, and the lugs [round barrel portion were then soldered on after slight filing and fluxing etc. Out of sight , so it wasn't that big a deal. The front sight was more of a challenge, so after carefully fitting, then cleaning;before clamping in place, I beat out a piece of solder on the anvil less than paper thin, cut it to shape with scissors, fluxed and fit to the sight then clamped to the barrel.
Turned the barrel so that the sight was on the underside, [ clamped in the vise] then heated with a propane torch until I could see the solder take. No clean up.

[rich pierce]

Great advice. I may practice soldering on some fire blued steel.  Jim, are you thinking lugs were brazed in place before the barrels were brought to final exterior dimension?  And do you feel barrels were finished on a lathe or by filing?

[keweenaw]

Brazing is an altogether different matter than soft soldering.  Jim's been looking at these pretty recently so if he says "Brazed" I'm confident they are.  If you put on lugs, silver sights, etc. with a high temp silver solder, basically our modern version of brazing, you could either fire or charcoal blue the piece.  Easy to do with a mapp torch or even a regular propane torch if the barrel is thin.  The barrel would be at final dimensions etc. but would need some cleaning up after the soldering.  Brazing per se would add somewhat more scale to the surface that would require removal.  I now expect to see many replies as to why one should never silver solder on a barrel.......   Apparently no one ever told Winchester not to do this with the accessory recoil lugs they brazed onto the bottom of their pre'64 Model 70 .458 mag. barrels.

Tom

[Jim Kibler]

I would expect the exterior to be pretty much set by the time lugs were attached since you don't see any sign of them being in a different plane than the rest of the barrel.  What I might anticipate is final straightening and boring / reaming to be done after the lugs were brazed on.  Bowing is an issue, especially if the heat isn't uniform and bore scale could be a problem as well.  Flux could help the scale issue.

[bgf]

Good luck -- I want to charcoal blue a barrel, but just too chicken, so far .  If you think soft solder would hold (esp. with shallow dovetails), doing that after bluing might be safer.  Really soft solder at ~275dF would be the safest, as it isn't that much hotter than boiling water, but the 430dF "silver bearing solder" is much stronger and might be a good compromise.

I think Jim is right that they would have had to do something after brazing on the lugs.  I would be afraid it would be too much on a finished barrel.

[James Rogers]

.........When the barrel is completely  dressed and smoothed on the outside,  the French workmen proceed to solder on the Ioops and aim, before they  breech the barrel ; for as they use  hard solder, the degree of heat necessary in the operation, produces a roughness on the inside of the barrel opposite  to the places where they are fixed; The English  workmen, however, fasten on the  loops, &c. with soft solder, which is  found quite sufficient for the purpose ;  and as the heat required for this, does  not affect the inside of the barrel, they  have the choice of doing it either before  or after the breeching, as is most  convenient to themselves. ...................................................Formerly, barrels were coloured by exposing them to a degree of heat which  produced an elegant blue tinge, but as this effect arises a degree of calcination taking place upon the surface  of the metal, the inside of the barrel always  suffered by undergoing the fame  change. This, therefore, added to the painful sensation excited in the eye by  looking along a barrel so coloured, has  causfed the practice of blueing to be  disused for some time past. Insteacl  of it, barrels are now browned, as it  is termed. To do this, the barrel is  rubbed over with aqua fortis or spirit of fai,^ diluted with water, and laid  by until a complete coat of rust is  formed upon it ; a little oil is then  applied, and the surface being rubbed  dry, is polished by means of a hard  brush, and bees wax.

An Essay on Shooting, 1789
DUBLIN: PRINTED BY ZACHARIAH JACKSON, Ton CRUEBER,  AND M'ALLIST ER, No. 59, DA ME-STREET

[rich pierce]

Thanks.  I'll try to avoid the painful sensation excited in the eye by  looking along a barrel so coloured by using period colored glasses.  Of course period folks may believe I have syphilis; if I recall, colored glasses were recommended in latter stages of the illness. 

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

I bought some solder paste the other day. it is a tube and has solder and flux in a paste form. you paint both sides thinly place them together and heat from both sides..  takes very little heat.  I have been testing ti with lugs on a thin Fowler barrel.  it is at least a strong as soft solder at this point???

So I think browning or cold/rust  blue will have to do the job.......... I will save my charcoal bluing for rifle barrels with dovetailed lugs.

[Jim Kibler]

The English fowling pieces I examined that had brazed (brass) on lugs were mid-eighteenth century pieces.  Based on James Rogers post it seems there must have been a transition to soft solder lug attachment at some point between say 1750 and 1789.  What have others noted who have examined late eighteenth or early twentieth century pieces?

[bgf]

The blue tinge that cause such painful excitement to the eye sounds more like fire blue than charcoal blue, doesn't it?   

[rich pierce]

The blue tinge that cause such painful excitement to the eye sounds more like fire blue than charcoal blue, doesn't it?   

It would seem, and I would also hazard a guess that on trade guns that fire bluing was done for expediency, without worrying about "calcination" of the bore or durability of the finish.

[Jerry V Lape]

Rich, have you tried the hot silver wire?  It is also period correct.