What a concept wink

Appleton's Dictionary of Machines, Mechanics, Engine-work, and Engineering, 1873
http://books.google.com/books?id=zi5VAAAAMAAJ
Gun Barrels
http://books.google.com/books?id=zi5VAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA936&dq
a thin riband of Damascusis sometimes veneered round iron

I think PeteM found this Franklin Warner 1916 patent. Not sure if it went anywhere post-WWI