Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Graham
These are from a Smith hammer gun I finished this week. Still without a logwood tank, but hope to have one sorted out soon.
These photos are mid-day, overcast. They'd look brighter overall in direct sun perhaps, and then possibly over-dark inside a room. The hue is the same in person, even though the underside looks lighter, it isn't really. Four coats of wax.
I still find myself using baking soda as a soft slurry for carding after etching. I like it. In a way it's flexible, in that you can use less or more, impregnating some steel wool or just fingertips, depending on how you need to deal with irregularities in the effectiveness of the etching. Calcium cabonate (whiting) is what Dr. Gaddy wrote about, and will try that also, but the soda accomplishes the same purpose and neutralizes the acid. Still working on it.
On the list to sort out is the coating of the bores with urethane or shellac without making a big mess.
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I was wondering about the urethane coat. I rust blue pretty regularly, in fact, it’s my regular bluing method. I work primarily on doubles and other higher end guns, so it didn’t make sense to maintain a set of tanks that would sit idle most of the time. I’m about to do my first Damascus barrel for a customer. It’s a Parker with Stubbs Twist barrels. I’ll probably be posting a lot of questions during the course of this new endeavor. Any help would be very welcome. I have Tom Flanagan’s article as a starting point. Where can Dr. Gaddy’s instructions be found?
I use shellac to mask bores and other areas in my rust blue jobs. It’s easy to apply, seems to stay intact very well even through repeated boiling cycles, and is really easy to remove at the end. Would it do well on Damascus finishing? I tried urethane early on my rust bluing. It is very hard to remove, especially from interiors of receivers and other tight spots, and sometimes, some of the stripping compounds recommended for urethane removal are very bad on the new finish. Can shellac be used with the etching steps? Your advice would be appreciated.