For blacking I rarely go past 6 cycles, maybe 8. Rust times are 1 hour at 90°and 60% humidity. Damascus barrels take a little bit more time. I normally hand card, but gave a carding wheel a try this last time and it worked pretty well (I can’t tell a difference in the finish vs. my usual hand carding). It cut the carding time down significantly, (5 to 10 minutes of hand carding vs. like a minute or two with the wheel and I’m done.)
Like Steve….I rarely ever see or get to the point of orange or red rust….in fact most of time the rust is a grayish green color, sometimes you can’t even see that….but after about 6 minutes in the boiling tank, they start turning jet black. I boil for a full 10 minutes to ensure full conversion.
I have seen LeFusil's barrel blacking and barrel browning work----- he is getting excellent results; and he is well on his way to in the future being able to duplicate the best London barrel blacking.
