I decided to clean this up a bit, make sure there was no rust in the barrel before displaying it on my wall and I made a rather nice discovery. The etched patterns that were visible under the old dry grease are about 60% still inlaid with silver. Not only that but the barrel is, contrary to my first expectations, a damascus twist barrel. No marks on the barrel though, no stamps etc., only the silver pattern.
So far I've only done an gentle etch to bring out the pattern on the top of the barrel where it was invisible. However, now I'm considering darkening it back to what I think is a more orginal colour, and fitting better with the dark wood. Not quite sure how I'll protect the silver though since the etch seems to work best hot and wax or grease resist might not do too well under those conditions. I wonder does anyone have experience with doing this and have an idea how best to tackle it?
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