I am restoring an old Elsie hammer gun with Damascus bbls, and I am having dificulty getting an even textured black and white pattern. The rust bluing phase is working quite well. It's when I etch the bbls to bring out the Damascus pattern that is giving me headaches. The etching solution works fine, but when I card the surface it ends up with streaks rather than a nice even textured color. Could it be that my metal preparation is not thorough enough and needs to be blemish free?
Any thoughts or recmmendations are welcome.
Marc
