Vinegar-cotton rope finish

[dbutch]

SMO- Going to find some smaller diameter cotton braided rope 1/4 " for the next finish..its the braiding that makes the pattern look nice.

 

[smo]

Sounds good keep us posted :thumbsup:

 

[dbutch]

I pulled the pin .here's the finish in a closeup--Look close you can see the braiding of the cotton rope....The yarn was a flop..all it did was etch and lightly pit the surface no pattern .

 

[BadHorse]

i hope to god you put vasoline in all threaded holes on that barrel! ive used the vinegar finish on several guns, and have made my share of mistakes in doing so! heres a pic of a gun that got that finish 2 years ago. oh yeah, i didnt use cotton string, rope or anything like that, i used t-shirts cut into strip and the wrapped around the barrel

 

[Philip Lebow]

Colleagues,

I would have never guessed that vinegar would etch the iron
so effectively.
I would have thought you needed something like Ferric
Chloride to etch the iron.

It might be interesting to try this with LMF brown, or dilute
HNO3 (Nitric Acid)

there are so many clever guys out there......Vinegar!

Mainspring.

 

[dbutch]

i hope to god you put vasoline in all threaded holes on that barrel! ive used the vinegar finish on several guns, and have made my share of mistakes in doing so!

Used anti-size on the threads only--oiled the inside of the barrel wet -plugged the muzzle and flash hole with 1" of lube to seal--worked great!

any chance of seeing a close up of the finish on that rifle? did you get any etching pattern?
Thanks for sharing....Dan

 

[PrimitiveHunter]

I pulled the pin .here's the finish in a closeup--Look close you can see the braiding of the cotton rope....The yarn was a flop..all it did was etch and lightly pit the surface no pattern .

At the risk of painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa, I wonder what it would look like if you followed the vinegar rope treatment with traditional blueing?

 

[mfwing82]

I like karwelis ' pattern a little more looks more natural.

 

[BadHorse]

At the risk of painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa, I wonder what it would look like if you followed the vinegar rope treatment with traditional blueing?

first, vinegar eats blueing! strips it right the heck off!!!!

and heres a pic of my barrel taken this morning, actually about 5 minutes ago, and this is what it looks like after 2 years of hard abuse!

 

[dbutch]

I pulled the pin .here's the finish in a closeup--Look close you can see the braiding of the cotton rope....The yarn was a flop..all it did was etch and lightly pit the surface no pattern .

At the risk of painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa, I wonder what it would look like if you followed the vinegar rope treatment with traditional blueing?

PH-I would think a blueing would enhance the look...It would need to be applied after the vinegar-rope finish.

Karwelis- looks good to me- reminds me of a naval jelly finish. I can't tell is there a pattern or etching in the metal surface?

 

[smo]

Mustard will work also, only it leaves a darker finish.And your rifle will smell like a hot dog for a while. :shocked2:

 

[BadHorse]

Karwelis- looks good to me- reminds me of a naval jelly finish. I can't tell is there a pattern or etching in the metal surface?

yes it leaves a very faint pattern, looks very much like damascus

 

[Frank Savage]

Vinegar finishes and patinas are used for tint and bronzes. I don´t know exactly how it performs on steels, but on mmentioned materials you can get quite durable dark brown.
Here darkening of stain is frequently obtained by tanine. Nowdays, quite big deal to get it, althrough it was very commmon at least before WW2, as is necessary e.g. for making ink. But you can get a working solution by "having a tea-break"

Use the darkest tea availible, no sacked scrap, no flavourings-no matter if natural or artificial. Just pure black tea. If you can get "russian tea", which is pressed into form of about 1, 2 and 5 lbs bricks, you´re happy. No "one spoon per pint"-take fistful of tea for that, maybe two. Let it stand just under boil for half or whole hour. You can add fresh oak bast. Apply on a warm (comfortable for hand, degreased surface, or slightly boil the barel in that and let it sit drowned for several hours.

 

[dbutch]

Frank- thanks for the reply--could you share a picutre of the tea based metal finish?

 

[dbutch]

Sounds good keep us posted :thumbsup:

SMO- Naval jelled the 2nd barrel rinsed and de oiled it rinsed and wrapped it in 1/4 " rope this time--will send pic's in a couple of days--barrel 27" 56 cal t/c smoothie....Smokie

heading to the range this am to plink shooting the 40 with the rope finish...Yes! Gotta love Good Friday's

 

[Frank Savage]

Now I can just try to find a picture of sth. tin, but that´s useles for steel. And steel, where it was done for colour is worthless, because here the finish is not made to withstand some use. On steel things I can have on hand I´m sure it will go off after two half-day range sesions. I´m going to try it on some scrap in next about two weeks, with aim on durability.

The steel will be something close to your 1018 or 1025, maybe I´ll have some pieces of Boehler K720 tool steel I´m going to use for a lockplate, so I´ll include it also.

I saw two rifles from mid 18´s on exhibition of our National Museum, which were surely done this way. They looked like damascus, but for sure it was not damascus (what dumbhead would use damascus for buttplate on a non-presentional hunting rifle?). I was about 13, knew about damascus processing, so it confused me a bit that time-"what the hell it is?"
Parts which are dark (under the rope) shall turn grey-brown with blue touch, the lighter parts just grey-blue with brown touch.

I know this process from some fellows who are in restoration jobs or hobbies and of course from those few books about restoration I´ve read.

 

[smo]

Can't wait to see the results,I'm working on a .62 cal smoothbore barrel myself.I'm still not sure if i will do another vinegar finish or will go with cold blue then navel jelly. Good Luck at the range i plan to hide a few round balls myself this week end :thumbsup:

 

[dbutch]

Frank--thank you for the the shared info-sounds interesting

SMO--Thanks.. found out the 40 cal gm doesn't like an OxYoke wad in the load column..just the lubed patch.got 2" at 100 yesterday--on the bench.windy we hit 78 degrees-normal 48 go-figure!.. here it is--27" 56 cal. T/C smoothie-degreased in brake cleaner-rinse-dry-naval jellied-rinsed dried-wrapped with 1/4" cotton made rope--(39 feet)-braided.... soaked rope in red wine vinegar 6 hours...left on barrel for 24 hours..added vinegar 3 or 4 times..turned horizontal barrel 5 to 6 times .
this barrel looks great as compared to when I bought it..previous owner removed the bluing and tried to age it?the etching is darker than the picture tells-think it's the flash

 

[smo]

I like it ! Did you just do navel jelly on the sights?

 

[Razor62]

Just wondering if anyone's tried a slow rust blue or brown over this "vinegar effect"? I'd love to see the results as this may be just what I'm looking to achieve on my next project. I really like the pattern. As close to Damascus as is necessary to satisfy me.