D grade question
 

When they have Damascus barrels, are they 3 or 4 blade? Thx, Ray

They are single "D". Same as GH grade.

No, I meant the number blades used to create the figure.

Grade 3 with Parker D4 (4 Blade) courtesy of Greg Baehman

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../323011454.jpg

DH D4 courtesy of Greg Franklin

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../267326176.jpg

Austin's DH D4

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../303923407.jpg

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...YvzD18i3c/edit

I've seen D's with three and I've seen them with four.
I can't ever recall seeing a GH with four and I've never seen a CH with three.
They are all marked with D for Damascus or DD for Finest Damascus (usually only seen on Grade 5 and higher). Often, but not always, you will see a 3 or 4 stamped above the D which I believe indicates the blade count.
The number stamped closer to the breech end is the grade stamp. I have never seen a 1 or a 2 stamped here... just 3 and higher.

Thx, Dean. I never made the connection with the number over the D. Interestingly, only one of my guns has such a number. I wonder why they were not always so marked?

Do you know the relationship between the number of leaves used to make the pile vs the number of rods in the ribbon? It doesn't appear to me that there is a direct relationship. I just looked at a 4 blade barrel that appears to have six leaves in the pile.

Stock book entries often comment on the number of blades in the barrels for an individual gun. Maybe our Research Committee would post a few pictures of the stock book notations about Damascus barrel blades.

See FAQ #56

That's a good question for Dr. Drew Hause... I don't know the answer to that one.

Good place to start
https://docs.google.com/a/damascuskn...Ns5L2XVfc/edit

Short version :)

It all starts with the lopin or billet: thin strips of iron and steel called 'alternees' or leaves.

The lopin is heated, hammered, and rolled into a rod, stripe, band, blade, iron, or rope – THEY ALL MEAN THE SAME THING and in the finished barrel are described as a 'scroll' by their appearance in Crolle pattern damascus.

The scrolls are larger in 2 Iron/Stripe and (usually) progressively smaller 3 to 4 to 6 Iron. The size of the scrolls is dependent on how tightly the rods are twisted before being hammer welded into the ribband AND how many alternees are in the rods.

2 and some 3 Iron/Stripe crolle patterns usually have 7 or 8 steel (which stain black) and 7 or 8 iron (which do not stain so silver) alternees or leaves within the scroll.

2 Iron

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../352262177.jpg

3 and 4 Iron might have 6 and 6.

D3 refinished by Dale Edmonds

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../334228988.jpg

4 and 6 Iron usually have 4 and 5 or 4 and 4. End on view of a rod with 4 steel and 5 iron alternees

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../325721042.jpg

4 Iron

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../352260744.jpg

6 Iron

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../405916955.jpg

Thx, Drew. Wonder why the number of leaves decrease as the blades increase? Is it merely to create bolder figure in the 2 blade for example?

Wonder why uniformity in thickness among the leaves was not a concern? I don't think it was required for strength. The metals compressed at different rates but that doesn't seem to have anything to do with it since the alternating layers are not uniform.

I'll check with Thomas and Leonard Ray :)

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../364044664.jpg

So many questions, and those we could ask are long gone. I stand in amazement at the creative, artistic and mechanical skills of those master craftsmen who made Pattern Welded barrels.

I started a similar thread on the DoubleGun forum and it was correctly pointed out that, in my inadequate effort to keep things simple, I only created more confusion :(

I've never found the word 'scroll' or 'leaves' in the mid to late 1800s Belgian and British descriptions of methodology or pattern nomenclature. Alternees is obviously French. Steve Culver already told me neither a c. late 1800s nor modern blacksmith would approve :) Dr Gaddy used the scroll or whorl words, and I do think they are appropriate descriptive terms

That said, the 'scroll' that we see in the pattern is made up of the 2 halves of adjacent rods hammer welded. The rod would have at least twice the numbers I stated for the 1/2 scroll.

You can count the alternees pretty easily in this image, and can see how the 'outside' alternee joins the adjacent scroll. I count 12 and possibly 13 iron alternee, for a total of 24 or 26. The rod is between the two 'zipper' (wavy) welds.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../405916959.jpg

'English Two Stripe' and the lower barrel quite clearly shows the zipper (wavy) weld which is down the middle of a scroll but is the weld of adjacent rods, and the straight weld where the edges of the ribband are 'jumped' or butt welded. I count 24 alternees.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../328933884.jpg

These are a Two Iron 'Horse-shoe' pattern. One can clearly see that the leaves between the zipper welds are connected ie. part of the same rod

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../331461542.jpg

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../371442418.jpg

This all blows my blown mind !

I had done some investigating of terms a few years ago and found that the word 'crolle' (fr.) translates to 'curl', 'coil', 'swirl' and one or two more that I don't remember.

Crolle - Crull - Crullen - Curlen are Middle English words that appear in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales written c. 1386 -
"And his lokkes buth noght so crolle..." and a young Squier with locks as "crulle as they were laid in presse."

In Danish, krolle; Swedish, krulla; French, s'enrouler; German, rolle
"To form into coils or ringlets. Twist."

"Crolle" was used in reference to damascus barrels in Liege and England by at least the 1880s.


Parker Grade 6 toplever hammergun with 6 Iron 'Turkish' and a remarkable 24 alternee.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../404429548.jpg

Yup, thanks for the correction, (myself relying on faulty memory) that's what I found too. Thanks Drew.

I was doing a letter on a Quality D hammer gun the other day and written in the entry for this gun, the stock book said 4 Blade. There were quite a few Quality D hammer guns on that stock book page and they all said 4 blade. Usually the stock book doesn't give the blade count. Perhaps they had too many 4 blade barrels and wanted to use them up. These guns are in the 52150 S/N range.

I didn't see anything about a blade count in the stock book example mentioned by Robin. Maybe I just don't know how to read it. I guess the workers just knew what barrel to use based on the grade? For example, if the order was grade 5 or 6, they knew to use a 6 blade barrel? If it was a grade 3, they could use a 3 or 4 blade barrel based on inventory?

Also I looked at all my barrels to see of the blade count was there as decribed by Dean. On the DD Grade 6s and the D Grade 2, there was no number stamped for blade count. Only my CH D4 had a "4" over the D.

I still don't understand the number of "alternees" by grade. Seems random.

Dean and Drew, you forgot one closest to my heart; Cruller, that lovely twisted doughnut.

Much simpler to deal in Ansley H. Fox doubles where all you have to worry about is KRUPP or CHROMOX.

I was looking at the stock book page for my 16 gauge Grade 2 top action gun and found that it and several others on that page were described as 4 blade Damascus in their barrels. However, serial number 59,361, a zero grade gun described as a PT (plain twist) gun, is also noted as having 4 blade barrels. Only one gun on the page from serial number 54,359 to 54,369, that is described as having Damascus barrels, has anything but 4 blade barrels. I think you will find that 4 blade barrels are more common than we thought, in guns lower than Grade 3. All of the guns, 54,362 to 54,369 are Grade 2 guns and seven out of eight have 4 blade barrels. That doesn't include the 0 Grade PT gun that is also 4 blade. Maybe Chuck would take a look at that order book page and comment.