Arab percussion for comments

[Battara]

I am just amazed at how those original artisans cut into damascus steel to inlay the silver. I would imagine that twist-core steel would be more difficult than mono-steel.

[Mefidk]

I guess it must be hard to cut due to differential hardness. I was also wondering how the silver inlay is held in place - is it put in hot or simply hammered into the recess? It would be nice to fill the missing sections, but that might be a technical step too far for my metalwork abilities (at least without risking damage to the barrel).

The silver pattern and the form of the barrel is somewhat similar to this one http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=13706 although this barrel is much nicer. Perhaps mine was a practice piece before he got onto making libra's gun

Chris

[kai]

Hello Chris,

I was also wondering how the silver inlay is held in place - is it put in hot or simply hammered into the recess? It would be nice to fill the missing sections, but that might be a technical step too far for my metalwork abilities (at least without risking damage to the barrel).

Silver and gold inlay is cold worked - these are soft metals and quite easy to work with (especially, when annealed).

Regards,
Kai

[kai]

I am just amazed at how those original artisans cut into damascus steel to inlay the silver. I would imagine that twist-core steel would be more difficult than mono-steel.

I doubt that these pattern-welded barrels received a heat treatment that would make them harder than decently treated monosteel of western origin. If you can work out a good bore for a barrel of almost 1 meter, the engarving for the inlay seems more like a piece of cake to me...

Regards,
Kai