An acquaintance of mine had acquired a percussion double barrel at an auction, and asked if I could do a bit of restoration work on it. The barrels are about 37-1/2" long, have English proofs and are marked "London fine Twist" on the top rib. The ribs were loose in a few spot and the nipples were broken off and rusted in place. I felt the barrels had some potential, and the locks were in good working order so I told him I would try to help him out.
I have to apologize but I didn't many of before photos, but I did get a couple of not so clear pics of the barrels:
I did some cleanup of the barrels using emery cloth, and the more I worked with them, more issues became apparent - additional loose stuff and lots of rust, as well considerable pitting on the outside of the barrels. The further I got the worse it looked!
Turned out the barrels weren't even solidly connected to each other anymore, so I separated them completely. The barrels, ribs, and parts were then soaked overnight in Evaporust, draw filed and polished with emery cloth. Notice the part numbers on the underlugs! The breech plugs refused to budge even with heat and considerable torque, so they were left in place.
Barrels were degreased, then the barrel contact points were covered with a silver solder paste from Brownells. I installed the hooked breech to help insure proper alignment. The barrels were clamped together and clamped down on a solid, level metal ShopSmith table before braising. Two mapp torches were utilized for the heat source.
Swif 95 solder paste was applied to the barrels and top rib, then wired together every couple of inches. Cut nails were used as tensioning devices - the more the nail was driven in the tighter the joint got. The top rib and barrels were heated with mapp torches and soldered together.
Similar techniques were used to solder the bottom ribs, lugs and loupes.
The excess solder was cleaned up with chisels, gravers and emery cloth and the metal polished up with emery and sandpaper. The barrels were then hung outside and browned using heat and chlorine bleach. The barrels were rinsed with clear water when cool enough to handle and then carded with a wire wheel and/or #0000 fine steel wool between browning sessions, depending on how much things needed carding back. I think I applied the bleach about six times.... it's a subjective process and will be different for different barrels. I found the barrels didn't have to be hot enough to sizzle the bleach in order to brown, but had to be hot enough to make it evaporate immediately. When the browning process was complete, the barrels were washed with household ammonia and water, then dish soap and water, heated with a torch to dry and sprayed with WD40 and left to hang for three days to watch for further rusting. When I was satisfied the barrels were not continuing to rust I degreased the barrels and applied two thin coats of Permalyn sealer. After that dried I put a coat of paste floor wax on them.
The locks were disassembled and cleaned, then reassembled and greased. Notice some color case was still visible on the bridles!
The ramrod that came with the gun was repaired, and a new one was also made to go with it. The original ramrod had been spliced before but the added part was missing. I made a fairly crude but serviceable repair utilizing the original splice. Okay, perhaps
very crude...
The nipple holes were cleaned out and tapped ten thousandths oversize, and .010 oversize square shank nipples were used as replacements. It was difficult to capture the barrel twist in photos, but here are some pics of the finished gun:
If I were to brown another set of barrels in this fashion I think I would try a 3 to 5 second dip of the barrels in a 15% ferric chloride solution between browning sessions, it is supposed to accentuate the light and dark areas of the steel. The barrels could also be boiled between browning sessions for a black color as opposed to brown.
Thanks for looking!
Curtis
