'Faux' damascus barrel?

[TNHillbilly]

I was looking at some pics of guns for sale at Sitting Fox Muzzleloaders and one had a Faux Damascus barrel-that is sharp! Anyone know how to do this?

 

[paulvallandigham]

Its done by taping the barrel prior to browning and/or bluing the barrel. You cut away the tape where you want the darker stripes, or pattern to appear on the barrel.

Then, you first brown that part of the barrel, or rust blue it, and then remove the remaining tape, and brown or blue that. The area that has been previously been browned or blued, will be darker, and you will have the desired finish.

Someone here, a year and a half or so back, put up pictures of a pistol he did, by " painting" the streaks or stripes on the barrel with a paint brush, using either bluing, or browning solutions. It was a fine piece of work. The concepts are the same. How you do it is all that differs.

 

[TNHillbilly]

Seems easy enough. It's that striping, or brushing, I think, that makes it look real. I have two old double barrel shotguns with Damascus bbl's-still beautiful. Used to unload cheap 12 ga shells and reload them with BP-great fun!

 

[William Joy]

a piece of old carpet works good to get a nice pattern - however I believe you are better of just making damascuss steel barrels if you like the looks - way more permanent....

 

[TNHillbilly]

I don't think I have enough time left on earth to make one! First, gather up old, used horeshoes,then, chop them up, heat up the forge............

 

[LRB]

It was also done on finer guns by hand burnishing the patterns in the steel before applying the finish.

 

[Zonie]

There are several different types of Damascus barrels depending on the number of strips of material that was used in its construction.

This little Belgian pistol barrel has a very fine pattern which consists of roughly 8 different strips of material spiral wrapped.

The pattern repeats itself about every 3/4 of an inch so the average width of each stripe is about 3/32 of an inch. They vary so the wide strip is about 1/8 inch wide and some of the narrow ones are about 1/16 inches wide.

Acid etching shows that each of these strips are different individual pieces so it is not a faux decoration which was created by special browning methods.

My reason for showing this was that it might serve as a guide if someone wanted to create a similar pattern. (Sounds like a lot of work to me).

 

[William Joy]

There were quite a few arms maker who used faux dam. finishes ( mostly on double barrel shotguns)or combination guns, where the shotgun barrel was real damascuss and the rifled barrel more modern steel and so the rifle barrel was matched in finish. The shotgun barrel was actually cheaper!
I personally think because there is always a problem with the faux finish to wear off, it is better to make a damascuss steel barrel if this is desired. Whe welding process is not that difficult, the only problem I see for most is that after pulling the mandrell , it is hard to drill the barrel without a boring bar and lathe.( which works fine on a short pistol barrel) I tried once to drill one with a normal drill - with no sucess - the drill wanders to much. So for rifles the simplest modern way is to forge a solid octagonal damascuss bar, deep drill and machine the outside contour on a mill