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Price:   £100.00 

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Price:   £310.00 

"Our barrel industry only reached this enormous productions and gained such an extent on account of its excessive cheapness which results partly from the low rate of wages paid even to the most skilful workmen; and partly from the advantageous geographical situation of this part of our country which in a small area combines all indispensable elements to this industry. Indeed the river 'La Vesdre' and all its affluents are driving a great number of hydraulical wheels which economical motive power is used for boring, polishing, turning and grinding the barrels. The coal pits of the Highland of Herve are situated close at hand which furnish the necessary fuel to the Damascus works; and it is worthy to be noted that these mines furnish a special kind of coal, scarcely to be found anywhere else and is very suitable for our barrel-smiths who we dare say are very skillful to their art, having never done anything else in their life. It is not to be that these men must become first rate Masters in the art of forging, if we consider that the average number of heatings to soldering heat, a barrel receives at least 150 for the fine Damascus tube being 300 heatings for a double barrelled and that if one of these heatings has not well succeeded, that is to say that the barrel has not received its rigourous precise temperature, the tube may be spoiled, either by the alteration of the Damascus, or by the traces of even the smallest want of soldering; you can easily imagine the skill which these workmen possess."  


Price:   £310.00 

"From the remotest times, this industry of gun barrel manufacturing has been practiced in the Valley of the Vesdre from Nessonvaux to Chaudfontaine. Under the First French Empire, our renowned barrel-smiths furnished the contingent of the workpeople for the Imperial manufactories. At that time all the barrels for Military guns were forged by hand; the preparing of the iron for these barrels was exclusively performed with charcoal and the superiority of this iron to that prepared with cokes is well known, In our days for the speciality of firearms as we shall show a little further. Now let us come to our subject; THE DAMASCUS BARREL with constitutes not only the chief, the essential part of the firearm, may be said to have become a masterpiece, for it has maintained its place during the incessant progess accomplished in a few years, in firearms. We say in a few years, for indeed, half a century ago the Damascus manufacturing was only in its childhood and it was only when the fulminate was used instead of flintstone that we may say Damascus barrel manufacturing really began. At that time, it is true, one could find here and there in some aristocratial hands a fowling piece with Damascus barrel, but that was a Damascus, the composition of which was very elementary, compared with our present Damascus. Our forgers and workshops then were almost exclusively occupied in making iron barrels and there were but few barrel makers who manufactured tubes or barrels called TWIST BARRELS (in French; Conons Tordus, Tors Ou Torches). This process consisted of making a contortion at each soldering heat which the longitudinal soldering of the iron barrel underwent, which eventually stretched the fibres of the iron into a transversal direction, the process of which was to give more consistency to the tube for resisting or withstanding the dilatation produced by shooting. 
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Price:   £310.00 

"..... This work which was very slow gave only an imperfect result with respect to Damas Keening, but it produced the idea that for obtaining a great power of resistance united with the necessary lightness of the sporting gun, the transversal soldering must be highly preferable to the longitudinal, so that, by manual work ribbons were laminated and wound like a spiral as it is practiced in our days. The barrels thus manufactured with good charcoal iron prooved to be already a great progress with respect to solidity, but offered of the Damascus appearance which was visible by certain traces of the spiral produced by the appearance of the fibres or the varnish of the metal. At this time, Paris, that city of luxury, had also its barrel manufacturers such as Bernard, Leclerk etc.who, though small in number, were not less excellent in their art, and it was from Paris that the first imitation came to us for the researches in the combining some mixture of iron and steel in order to produce figures which we call Damascus, such as Turkish Damascus, Bernard, Leclerk and Parisien Damascus etc. to an infinate number of names, as the combinations that compose the figures of the Damascus vary constantly; almost like the designs on our hanging papers in our rooms, with the only difference, that in these the variery is produced by the colours on the surface, whilst the figures on the damascus are produced by the substance or material like the designs or patterns in our linen weavers. What is the Turkish or Curled Damascus, the Horse-shoe nail, the Boston, etc. that are derived from them." ... 
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Price:   £310.00