doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Trial run of damascus B&W finishing

Bill,
Thanks very much for clearing up those points. I do have the two DGJ articles that Oscar wrote as well as some correspondence from him from a few yrs ago. It seems that even Oscar varied the process when he felt something was not working. I suppose that knowing when to do adhoc changes comes with experience.

I did change my etch solution to match your/Oscar's recommendations. In the past, I had read Oscar's recommendation to be a 15% strength solution of FeCl3. I can see from my short experience that 15% strength is way too strong. Thanks again.

As for a source of FeCl3 solution, I found it at a old-time electronics store. You know the kind; dust on everything, things all in disaray. Great store.

After much messin around, I'm finally starting to get somewhere with this.

The pic is the coupon after another 3 rusts, (2 two hr rusts and one 11 hr rust) and boiling after each, then finally after the 3 consecutive rusts/boil/carding, one 5 second etch in a solution of 1.5 oz Radio Shack etch/8.5 oz water. I played with the lightness/darkness of the pic to make it look like actual, but did not adjust contrast. Oh, and I went courser on the steelwool to "0" grade

Chuck, when you get your recipie down perfect, remember that the same method does not work the same on all Damascus or twist barrels. All barrels are not the same and your method , that you decide on, will probably not work on all. Well, it's all so fun.

Ranks-a-Rot Daryl.

I understand what you're saying Daryl. But this experience should help me be able to figure out what changes to make when things aren't working....I hope.

The pic is of the coupon without any oil. I put some oil on it per Bill's mentioning and WOW! I'm rusting it again just because I want to see where it goes. But if that were a full set of barrels, I would probably quit there.

I'd start working on the Parker barrels now but I'm getting ready to go quail hunting like that famous guy Brad Pitt does down there in Texas. Besides I haven't prepped them from the soldering process yet anyways.

Chuck..........looks great! But I'm not real sure, are you going for brown/white or black/white? Are you boiling?

I get to quail hunt in the morning too!

we got a bit busy around the shop today and couldnt focus on the damascus as much as I wanted. Cutting back on the strength of the etch really seems to help. I'm at 6 to 1 now and think that will be a good place to start. My local radio shack order me 2 circuit board kits that have a bunch of other junk in them with the etch. At 16$ per kit, not a big deal.
Steve

I bought a gallon of circuit board etch from the local electronics store. I'll hit the mfr's website for the MSDS for the strength so I can match the test solution.

Battle,
The picture has a bit of a yellow cast from the lighting. It's been boiled well in distilled water at each rust. The color is more of a cold blue-grey color.

This is very true. The barrel makers were constantly changing sources for their iron and steel. In addition, in the later years they were dependent on what the rolling mills were selling at the moment.

While speaking to Dale Edmonds about this, he is pretty convinced that to some extent it will depend on how the barrels were finished when they left the factory.

This is the page from the Puraye article were he talks about the 4 different types of finish.
http://s27.photobucket.com/albums/c181/tintype1/LeDamas/?action=view&current=amr_4_76_p2.jpg

I admire you Chuck, for taking this on. It is just as much art as science.

Pete

A couple more 1 hr rusts and 5 second etches between each with "0" steelwool and it's looking like the tips from the experienced guys and our late great friend Dr. Gaddy has paid off nicely. This pic has some light oil on the coupon as well.

Chuck, I think you have got a winner. In going along with what Daryl said is probably true, but I would think the better the grade the nicer it would come out.