doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Black & White Twist?

I can find good photography of black & white damascus, but not "twist"? I suppose my next step will be to do a search here . Hopefully, I'll have more success this time.

Doc Drew shows B & W Twist examples here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BdbWHfJmr2EyvzcPybid7pwlEliH6m9pr1LxMESM3W0/edit

Wild Skies: Thankyou. I still didn't have much luck searching the database here. It's a shame all the knowledge that's been shared here in the past is seemingly locked away now.

If only you were a member of the PGCA, you’d be able to find oodles and oodles of member’s B&W twist damascus barrels that have been posted on their forum.

Since b/w takes more steps than browning, are these twist barrels refinished?
Or did different mfg companies choose b/w for their low grade guns?

Well, maybe. I'd always heard that American Damascus was originally black & white and English was browned. These still have some pattern but they're due for a refresh.

Twist "rough forged tubes" were MORE expensive than that those new fangled decarbonized and fluid steel, but less than pattern welded related to less complexity in fabrication

1897



And this was reflected by the turn-of-the-century gun prices



Both the Birmingham Proof House Trial and my study showed Twist to have just slightly less strength than crolle damascus, and both slightly less than decarbonized
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cvqRzkg0wEjhAAcFWr8gFi7aPFRsSIJ_hahfDxmrNAU/edit


Lloyd is correct that the vast majority of U.S. makers finished their Twist and Pattern Welded, in all grades, in black & white, English tubes were browned, and lots of Ferlach and French tubes were black & white acid etched.

Of course none of us can know what a fresh from the factory Twist barrel looked like now after 120 years, but we can get a clue looking at the contract underneath the FE - courtesy of Carl Brandt



This is probably as close to original colors as we're going to see; "Washington"



Ithaca Lewis model with Chain Damascus



A refinished Flues No. 1

Dr. Drew: Trying to find examples of "Bernard Ribbon" twist and not finding anything on-line so far. I'll go over to your "damascus knowledge" site and start there. It is my present understanding that "Bernard Ribbon" is a twist variant, is that correct?

Also, it seems unlikely that Bernard Ribbon would have Birmingham Provisional proof marks, correct? Given that, the pattern I'm looking at this morning (in photographs only so-far) clearly has them, I'm beginning to wonder if these tubes aren't laminated steel instead? I don't think they are "twist" because the striations are much more diagonal than lateral and there is a clearly repeating pattern.

This would be a good place to look also Lloyd
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tXvObBOfgGpOKTh_jkttPcH1lKd--bfHY_sIjmr8uy8/edit

The problem is that several of the presumed salesman's samples are WITHOUT THE NAMES and the many makers of pattern welded tube named them whatever they wanted
I still have a couple of our British correspondents on the look-out for a British sample box - illustrations just don't work.

I'm only assuming this is (refinished and I think by Breck Gorman) Bernard Ribbon

Dr. Drew: This doesn't look like "twist" to me. These tubes have Birmingham provisional proof marks and a clearly repeating pattern that is more diagonal than lateral so...laminated steel?




1891 "O" Grade LC Smith