Carding, and boiling at the end

[Campchair]

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.

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.

[Bill Graham]

I don't use Scotch Brite pads. The slurry I make is very wet, about the consistency of cream and works well.

[charlie cleveland]

those barrels looked very good to me..charlie

[Ed Blake]

Those barrels are among the best I have ever seen.

[Harry Collins]

Bill,

I've had to change horses in midstream. Abbey's logwood at $2,730 for 10 pounds has pushed me out of the Oscar Gaddy and Dale Edmonds method of doing barrels. I too am rusting, boiling, etc. In the last four months I have discovered so many ways NOT to color barrels. I'm trying to discover what works best for carding after the Ferric Chloride etching. For the moment I'm sticking Carding with steel wool and dawn followed by bon-aim and sponge. Dale carded like this after the ferric chloride dip followed by a dip in Potassium Hydroxide to neutralize and to help remove the logwood from the lugs, etc.

Harry

[Bill Graham]

Originally Posted by Harry Collins

I've had to change horses in midstream. Abbey's logwood at $2,730 for 10 pounds has pushed me out of the Oscar Gaddy and Dale Edmonds method of doing barrels. I too am rusting, boiling, etc. In the last four months I have discovered so many ways NOT to color barrels.

I'm not convinced that what's on Amazon isn't just as good: powder, chips, extract. It certainly isn't that expensive. Same stuff as what's used to boil traps, so why not barrels?

The English was black enough without using it, but it was more labor intensive. My tank set-up is nearly operational, so I'm still going to try it, and give the Amazon stuff a try.

[Dean Romig]

Not a criticism of Dales work because he did a wonderful job for me on the sets of barrels I sent to him - one being a set of Bernard barrels that he refinished in pure black and white, but it took him years to finally perfect his method to a level of consistency. There was a very long learning period where he only was able to get them to come out light gray and dark gray. The learning curve is long and slow.






.

[Harry Collins]

I have tried the Amazon logwood and the barrels turned black as my heart. With ferrous sulfate added they did not turn black. With ferrous sulfate after barrels were black the results were if I had carded after the first rusting. Carding the black barrels without the
Ferrous sulfate was just as fruitless.

[Bill Graham]

Hey Harry. I'm a bit confused. Logwood for traps did, or did not, blacken? The ferrous sulfate did not help the oxide to release from the steel? I've got a barrel of my own to try soon, so I'll do some testing.

[Harry Collins]

Bill,

I'm confused as well! I have five sets of barrels going and will try the amazon logwood in different form today on two of them. All I know about the ferrous sulfate and potassium hydroxide is what I've read in Oscar's articles. I have been reluctant to post about this until i was successful. I'll let you know what today brings.

Harry