Euripodes, I don't have an apprentice. But, I am working to make sure that my knowledge of this work is recorded to be shared. Thanks for the appreciation!

I am just blown away by your supreme skill Steve, where did you learn and as i live in England how can i buy one of your knifes? The pattern is just beautiful, you are an artist no question. Respect's sir.

SuperDiddzz Thank you for the appreciation!! I have about a 2 1/2 year waiting list of knife orders. However, I also make some knives to put on my table at knife shows. I occasionally have some of these knives available for immediate sale. They can be seen on my web site. www.culverart.com/knivesavail.htm Or, you may email me about placing a knife order. steve@culverart.com Thank you again!!

Thanks Phanum, glad that you enjoyed it! I thought that I sounded pretty dull. LOL! Video production is not my forte. I might have tried to do a better job, if I had realized that so many people would watch it!

There's quite a few folks still doing that today! Not so much on the damascus barrels............

Most English barrels were made in Belgium

​@@markcooper9063watch: canon damas de fabrication. Here on youtube. Early 1900s footage of Belgian men making damast barrels.

Thank you Richardsen!!

Thank you John!

Thank you xram!

Thanks Ray. Actually, they had some pretty cool tools back then! And they worked smarter than most of us do today.

Thanks bob!!!

santhony, I don't see myself as more talented than thousands of other smiths. You just have to want to do it enough to just go for it. :-)

Thanks Eric!! I'm glad that you enjoyed watching it!

Thanks for the kind comments, MrRichinil!!

Thanks Dave, I'm sharing the information with some other smiths and also writing it all down. Might become a book, some day.

Thank you B. Constable!!

I owned an old Parker CHE and I gather that was about the end of Damascus firearm production, it also was beautiful but only shootable with .410 inserts. Yours has a "tight" no void look that needs to be taught to young fellows so we don't lose that craftsmanship.

+1946nimrod Thanks nimrod!! The 1875 date opens the possibility that the barrels were Birmingham made. British barrel making ended around 1903. Virtually all barrels after 1903 were made in Belgium. The nitro proof marks indicate a late proofing on the barrels. There's something special about the smell of the smoke from old shells. I don't know if it's the chemicals used or the aging of them. Maybe a hint of cordite? Just makes you smile.

+Steve Culver Indeed, almost certainly Birmingham barrels as very few provincial gunmakers would have had the facilities - or the knowledge - to make their own. I have various recipes for a Browning mixture - drinking them cannot be recommended. Keep up the good work!

Thank you!!

Thanks!!!

Thanks BB!

Thank you Gordon! Regrets that you are not allowed to do this kind of work. Maybe saves you a good bit of frustration though. :-)

Gordon, the ban is on blackpowder and potential firearms or even general blacksmithing and equipment?

You can get blackpoweder if you have permit. You cant get smokeless propellant uness it is for a licensed company. The law regarding a lot of this stuff is so complex here it's stupid

Thanks! Glad you like it!

Thank you!!

Thanks James!

Thank you Just!!!

+stanthology Thank you!!!

Thanks!!!

Thank you, Math J!!

***** Thank you for the appreciation!!

Thank you Mr. Alwayson!!

Thank you Tom2112Tom!!

Thanks Moss!

Thank you adam!!!

Thanks Monty!!Did you see my KZfaq video of building the Damascus Steel Pistol? It's my best video, also on my KZfaq channel.

Thank you!

Thank you Jason!

Many old shotguns that were originally proofed for black powder were subsequently reproofed for nitro powder. A gun in sound condition is perfectly safe to shoot with proper pressure and shell length loads.

Thank you farmers!

Thanks Wayne! Yea, buddy! It's hard work!

I couldn't pull that off in my little shop! :-)

@@SteveCulverMS1 you still one up on me. I couldn’t pull it off with the right setup! Lol

Thanks honda!

Thanks Greg, I hope to have another gun barrel video to post soon.

powermugu You're welcome!!!

Thanks for the appreciation Sully!!

This video is rather old and was shot with a camera that was not HD. KZfaq's formatting was not as good at that time either. So, less definition than is common today. I have a GoPro camera for shop videos now. Check out my video, on this channel, of the Freedom's Steel Pistol build.Thanks for the compliments on the pattern welding process!!

Thanks Ross!! Glad that you enjoyed it!

I made this barrel of 1084 and 15N20 steels. I made a barrel for a different project from 1084 and 1018 steels. I chose these steels because of my familiarity in working with them. That doesn't make them the best steels for making spiral welded of barrels from. They are of course, modern steels. Modern steels resist forge welding, because of thier alloy content. We make damascus knife blades from modern steels all of the time. Forge welding modern steels to make knife blades is easy, because of the severe dimensional reduction of the stock. Lots of heat, lots of compression. You can't do this degree of dimensional reduction on a gun barrel. So it is very difficult to make a damascus gun barrel from modern steels, because it is a challenge to get the spiral welds to take and hold.The best materials for making spiral welded barrels, is what they used 100 years ago and more. Old damascus gun barrels were made from wrought iron and very low carbon steel. This combination of metals is very soft under the hammer and very easy to forge weld. On my KZfaq channel, there are a couple of videos of me reforging a 100 year old shotgun tube into a pistol barrel. The short version of the video shows all of the forging process.If I were to make a barrel from wrought iron and low carbon steel, I would use some old wagon tire or anchor chain for the wrought iron. I would use 1002 or 1005 for the steel.

Awesome, I was wondering if a low, medium or high carbon would need to be used. I have worked with 1084 and 15n20 some for use in blades. Is there any kind of heat treating being done or are they in the annealed state?

Thank you morefreedom!!!

There are tens of thousands of old damascus barreled shotguns still in service. They are used every day, by hunters and sport shooters around the world. Like any old gun, they should be checked before shooting by a competent gunsmith; someone who understands damascus gun barrels. Many old shotguns had chambers which were shorter than today's 2 3/4 inch shells. Each old gun must be checked to see what the chamber length is. Safe ammunition for these old guns is made by a couple companies. One company is RST Shells. You can learn a lot about damascus barreled shotguns on the damascus-knowledge.com web site. sites.google.com/a/damascusknowledge.com/www/home There is also a great gun forum, where you can find information and ask questions of very knowledgeable gun collectors. www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=cfrm&c=1

The problem started when nitro powders were introduced, and people didn't realise that only half the amount was needed as an equivalent charge. Black powder is slower burning.

You're welcome Dave.

Thank you Machinist!!!

Thanks Eric!! I'm not certain that I could put a sales price on raw forged tube. I don't have this process down to a point where I would consider making a raw barrel to sell. Besides; the machine work to finish out a raw barrel tube is very complicated. I would have serious concerns about passing a barrel tube off for anyone else to do the machine work on. Don't mean to be elusive. Just can't put a price on it at this time.

Thanks Danny!!

Thanks jaces!

+LOZBRY Thank you!!

As far as functionality, there is no advantage at all. I made this barrel out of damascus steel, to replicate the work done to create gun barrels 100 years ago. Until about 100 years ago, there was no good process for making gun barrels out of just steel. Most gun barrels were made of wrought iron. Gun barrel makers began making barrels out of damascus steel (wrought iron and steel forged welded together), as a way of strengthening the barrel material. This allowed for making barrels with thinner tube walls and much improved the balance and swing of fowling (bird shooting) guns. A convenient side effect of making damascus barrels, was the opportunity to create beautiful patterns in the damascus steel.

+Toolrific Thank you!! I made this barrel to be used on the flint-lock pistol part of a combination weapon. There is a video on my KZfaq Channel, of me firing this piece.

In his book, “The Gun and its Development”, W.W. Greener writes the following paragraph. “Eighteen pounds of prepared gun-iron are required to weld an ordinary pair of 12-gauge barrels, which, when finished, weigh, with the ribs, lumps, and loops, but little over 3 ½ pounds. After bearing in mind this fact, and considering the great expense and loss of expensive steel and iron attending the manufacture of the metal, and the cost of welding of best barrels, it will no longer be a matter of wonderment that best guns are expensive to produce.” I believe, because of what Greener writes in other sections of his book, that the “prepared gun-iron” he speaks of is the actual damascus material that will be forge welded into barrel tubes. This is supported by the sentence in this paragraph about the “loss of expensive steel and iron attending the manufacture of the metal.” The “metal” being the prepared damascus “gun-iron”. Heating ferrous materials to high temperatures, as necessary for forge welding and drawing, and then exposing them to ambient atmosphere will always cause a loss of material to oxidation (forge scale). The large gun manufacturers produced their damascus material in rolling mills. They would stack together huge arrangements of iron and steel, weighing around 200 pounds. The stacked metals would be heated in a furnace to forge welding temperature. Once at heat, the arrangement of metals would be forge welded by passing it through rollers. Subsequently, it would be drawn out into the rods needed to weld into gun barrels by further rolling. Using a furnace where the atmosphere could be controlled to minimize oxidation of the metals and the efficiency of rolling the material into bar stock would greatly minimize the loss of material to oxidation. I have nothing but my own experience to base my opinion on, but I would guess that perhaps 5 percent of the original metals would be lost during welding, drawing and possibly grinding clean the bars of damascus material. An estimate of about 10 pounds of metal to make a single 12-gauge barrel in a furnace/rolling mill process would be reasonable. My experience at doing similar work in a less efficient blacksmith shop setting raises the material loss to 10 percent, or a little more.

This old video was shot with a standard definition camera. Please check out another video on my KZfaq channel. This second video is of a pistol build that I did, which also had a damascus barrel. It is in HD. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/d6yijdidys3adqc.html

I have a swedge block, but really didn't need it for this project. The coiled damascus was round, after winding it around a mandrel. Just kept it that way during forging.

This barrel was made of 1084 and 15N20 steels. Thanks for the appreciation!

Thanks for making such a great video.. what is the ratio of 2 steels used?

I used 1084 and 15N20 steels for this barrel.

I have used 1084 and 15N20 for one gun barrel and 1084 and 1018 for another. That being said, modern steels are extremely difficult to weld into a spiral welded gun barrel. The old damascus barrels were made of wrought iron and very low carbon steel. This old mix of ferrous metals was much easier to use for barrel making.

This video was filmed with a camera that was not HD. Reformatting for KZfaq made the quality worse. There is another video on my channel that is in HD, showing my work on another gun barrel project. It is much better quality. It is titled "Damascus Steel Pistol Build". kzfaq.info/get/bejne/d6yijdidys3adqc.html

Thank you Glenn! Yes, these barrels take a LONG time to make. This video is a condensed look at it. The machine work to finish a barrel is also extensive.

***** May I ask, how long did take for the entire process shown? Edit: Ah I see someone asked this already - 3 weeks. Thanks.

Thanks 19hummer73!!

A hundred years ago, it was thought that spiral welded barrels were stronger. The practice of winding the damascus material into a spiral form, opened the possibility to create intricate damascus patterns.

Thanks jeetenz!! I'm glad that you enjoyed it!

I've considered it, but doing so is not an easy process. I have though, worked on tensile strength calculations to make estimates on the burst strength of my barrels.

My intention was to make a 6 inch barrel. Lost a portion of it to a bad forge weld. Extremely difficult to weld modern steels into a gun barrel! Guess I should have thought about filming to ball hitting something interesting. 🙂 Was just shooting at a paper target.

+Isaac Myers I do not put gun barrels through a full hardening and tempering process. They are only thermal cycled after all of the forge work, to reduce the steel grain structure and stress relieve them.

+Isaac Myers The original Damascus barrels were a mix of welded wrought iron and steel bars, any heat treatment would had only hardened the steel and not the iron. A softer barrel would had been safer during a rupture in any case.

+Bulsh1tMan Actually, the steel portion of the old barrels would not be expected to harden. At least not differentially from the iron portion. This is because of carbon migration through the two ferritic materials. Carbon migration happens very quickly at high temperatures. Carbon seeks to find an equilibrium throughout the two forge welded materials. So after all of the high temperature forge welding, the resultant carbon content in the finished product is a average of the carbon content of the two original metals. As wrought iron has virtually no carbon content, the carbon content of the steel would be diminished by the migration of carbon from it, into the wrought iron. The resulting averaged carbon content in the finished gun barrel, would quite possibly be too low to harden substantially. I have seen no old documents suggesting that damascus gun barrels were subjected to a hardening process.

***** Never thought about carbon migration at welding temperatures, that would make sense. But yes, I'm pretty sure the old Damascus barrels never went through any heat-treat hardening, it wouldn't had made sense with the material at hand. I believe even when homogenous steel barrels became available, even those were left unhardened until the high pressures of smokeless powder became an issue.

+Bulsh1tMan I find no mention of heat treatment processes performed on barrel tubes, in any writings contemporary to the manufacture of damascus barrels. They were however, doing a type of heat treatment process on many barrels, which I am certain that they did not fully understand. There are old writings that state that the best barrels were hammered at a black heat. This would be a low red heat, down to a temperature of about 900 to 1,000 degrees F. They believed that they were compacting the steel, same as the old teachings of packing the edges of knife blades. The grain structure of steel becomes very large at high heats. Re-heating the steel to a low red heat and allowing it to cool in still air, causes the grain structure to break up and become smaller. Coarse grained damascus does not etch well. I’m certain that they could see a more refined appearance in barrels that were hammered at a black heat. We know now, that the thermal cycling of the steel was all that was required to refine the grain structure. Hammering at low temperatures is unnecessary. I believe that many of the old barrels that the barrel finishers have problems with, are a result of the tube not having been properly thermal cycled to reduce the grain size.

LOL!!! Thanks steffo1!

This barrel was intended for use in building a knife/gun combination weapon. Some of the damascus steel that I welded up was used not only for the barrel, but also for some of the fittings on this weapon.

They were amazing artists!