This isn't a knife, but there are a lot of you who knew that I have been working on this pistol project. The gun is finally completed. Thought you might be interested to see how it came out.
The .45 caliber barrel used on this pistol, is of Bernard pattern damascus steel. A hooked, patent breech-plug was used with the barrel. I did some engraving on the tang of the standing breech. The breech-plug, standing breech, trigger, trigger plate and hammer are in French gray.
There were 81 steel rods, stacked into the billet used to make all of the damascus used on this pistol. There were 41 rods of 1084 steel and 40 rods of 1018 steel. The rods were stacked in a 9 x 9 checkerboard arrangement in the billet. All of the steel rods were ¼ inch square and 6 inches long.
This stack of steel rods was forge welded into a solid block. The block was drawn out by forging and then cut into two pieces. These two pieces were additionally drawn out into rods that were 1/2" square. These two rods were then twisted along their entire length, at a rate of 3 1/2 revolutions per inch. The two rods were then forge welded to each other and used to make all of the damascus steel for the pistol.
I designed and built the lock used on this pistol. I made hardened steel jigs, to shape the tumbler and sear. By using these jigs, I can shape the tumbler and sear to fit with perfectly each other. The parts are placed in the jigs, and then cut down to the jig with saws and files. The jigs make it possible to build more of these precisely and identically shaped parts. This pistol's lock-plate, is made from the same damascus steel as was used to make the gun barrel.
The trigger guard also incorporates the same damascus used elsewhere on the gun. The guard was forged to shape and then hand finished.
The sterling silver front sight blade, is soldered into a windage adjustable steel base.
The wood used to make the pistol stock, is cherry wood that came from the site of George Washington's childhood home. I shaped the pistol stock from a block of wood obtained from "Historical Woods of America Inc.", located in Woodford, VA.
Wow! I can't imagine the number of hours that you must have in this and beautifully done. Nice touch with the historical wood for the stock. You continue to amaze.
<img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//biggrin.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' /> What's next? Matched dueling pistols?
Gary
B.T.W.--Good luck with the project that you spoke of while in Little Rock. I hope that it turns out for you.
Steve it takes a remarkable man to create such a remarkable piece as that.thank you for sharing look forward to seeing you at blade
Scott
Wow Steve, absolutely amazing! I at one time wanted to be a gunsmith, and can totally appreciate your melding of the master gunsmith and master bladesmith to make such an artisanal treasure! Truly a work of art!
I would love to see another demo or two of twisting damascus and especially one on actually building the twisting apparatus used to twist your damascus, and also along the lines of what you and Jerry Rados did on that Turkish damascus at Topeka last October! That demo is worth seeing twice.
So besides the beauty you created here I would like to ask you to maybe bookmark a class next ABS Heartland on tooling/fixtures for twisting damascus. I think it would be a huge hit!
Do you also know how to color case harden? That would be another great demo!
Thanks,
Long winded Tony Zanussi
Kansas City, MO
Great work Steve! Will you have it at the Blade Show?
Thanks for sharing the project.
Russell
This was an an amazing project and Steve did an outstanding job. This is a YouTube video that Steve made to demonstrate how he built the Damascus pistol. You really need to see the process that Steve used to build the Damascus barrel.
[media] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3VLJCW65rM [/media]
Dan Cassidy
Journeyman Smith
Send an email to Dan
What a great test of patience and skill! Excellent work! Research, planning, design........and then the skill to pull it off!
Plus I just love these type guns.
Thanks to all for the compliments!!!
Gary,
I don't know that my sanity could handle building matched pistols right now!!!
Tony,
That's an interesting suggestion about the color case hardening demo. I understand the process, but have never tried it. I think it takes quite a few hours of having the parts at heat in the crucible with the bone meal. Not sure how to work that into a demo. But, I'll see if I can find out more and whether I can find someone who is interested in doing a demo.
Russell,
The pistol will be auctioned off on April 10th, at the NRA Annual convention. All of the money raised by its sale will be donated to the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.
Dan,
Thanks for posting the video!!! That video covers only a VERY small portion of the work that was done on the main parts of the pistol. I have a bunch of video clips that were shot during this pistol build. I will later make a much longer video, with more thorough coverage of the work.
A truly masterful piece, Steve. The very fine and precise engineering is a marvel all by itself, but the elegance and beauty built into each individual component shows the hand of a true artist.
Very pretty!
