Interesting Toradar Barrel

[archer]

Hoping to find more information on how this Toradár barrel was made. It probably came from Jaislemer a city fort ruled by a Rajput family.the barrel was all I obtained weighs 6 lbs. and is 39 inches long with a bore size of 75 hundreds of an inch, it easily accepts a full choke muzzle loader wad. The chamber and muzzle are made in an orange slice pattern and an exaggerated zig-zag pattern on the slightly oval barrel.
Dr Leo S.Figiel in his book" On Damascus steel", exhibits similar barrel designs . This one incorporates two designs in one barrel. At these junctions are steel bands once covered in some gold. I think the swaging was done in a cone within a cone and the rings were cover the weld.
Everything about this barrel while similar is different. It seems at one moment to be an applied layer then as the entire diagonal spiral wrapped solid construction barrel. Apparently inserted faggots of steel were forged together, Multi Fiori glass or hard candy fashion.

Note the slice pattern is diminished under the chamber and what is there is rather faint??? The zig-zag pattern is hard to follow it appears to overlap the raised ridge of the barrel.

It came with heavy oxidized patina with only a hint of maybe engraving at the breach. Never having seen one up close I'm not sure what a restored finish should look like love the design effect in the polished muzzle area.
Is six pounds excessive for a barrel? any and all comments and further advise will be appreciated Steve

[Pukka Bundook]

Good evening Steve,

That is a very interesting barrel!

I have seen similar design in Elgood's book on Islamic arms, (Toradar /Indian section)
With the book you have, you are definately one up on me! I never knew how they made that "orange" pattern. I believe in Robert's book there is one with just about every pattern of weld all on the one barrel.

It looks fantastic at the muzzle! How is the bore, and,...Does it have a constriction and chamber at the breech? (Most do.)

Weight -wise, I do not think it that unusual for a torador /toradar. (In India, they have various names for these, and here, we squabble about two of them, LOL!
I have two barrels of approximately the same weight, but one is 53 inches long.
These are round in section, but have one at maybe 46", and it has the ridge on the upper side, and is a sporting gun (I believe) from Jaipur or Amber.

Indian barrels are usually Much heavier than European or British, and that helps a lot with recoil, the toradar not having much to brace against the shoulder.
I woul dif possible like to see an overall view.

Thanks for showing it, and sorry I am no real help!

Richard.

[archer]

Hi Richard ,
The barrel should cleanup nicely oddly the fluted area appears choked down a bit. Were the guns ever used as Fowlers? The breech has a restriction of a 1/4 inch then it opens up for about 4 inches. The Rear Sight is very finely slotted but , the ears almost look as the could be used for windage. i'll have see if I can find books you mentioned. The wave cheveron patterns shown
are much smaller and i'm not sure just how my barrel was zig-zagged well over the width of normal strip sizes?? Thanks Steve

[Roland_M]

Hello Steve,

such a nice barrel!

Here I have an old guide how to clean the barrel for you.

"An old trade process for polishing metal used white black-board chalk sticks
in combination with oil. First coat the barrels with a light film of gun oil or
Ballistol. Then rub the barrels with the chalk stick, focusing on the rusted areas, but to include the entire surface."


Roland

[thomas hauschild]

I‘m not realy sure if this is a damascus steel made out of layers. The “round“ structure which looks like a wheel or a half cut orange will be possible to make as a round bar, not impossible. But making opposite cuts and fold it out will not result such a clear, undeformed pattern with one round near the other. Cutting such a bar into slices and weld let me say 30 pieces side by side on a flat different steel is possible but the weld will not so good that you ca make a long enough bar to bend it round to make a barrel. And make every hammerblow and keep the structure round within the steel and make every welding and forming and keep the round pattern. I do not think so

The strukture with the angles shows exakt „layers“ meeting each other perfectly „around the sharp angle“ . If you make a twisted bar, the pattern will be different ( turkish twist) if you will make a bar with a 45° angle, that will be possible but it will be impossible to make a second bar and weld it so perfectly together that you will meet the opposite layer everytime perfectly, like it looks on the pictures. You can push a cold blade through a „high tower“ of hot damascus steel and get that angle afterwards but there will be a „feather-like“ structure after this. ( google for feather damascus ) It will be possible to weld 2 pieces of damascus steel together under an angle to make a chevron. There are some composite blades with chevrons in some kris. But that pieces are very small and does not have the length that you will need to make a barrel like this with perfectly matching layers. To make a long enough bar to wrap it around a core likes this, will need several thousands layers that will need to match the oposite bar

So from the pictures I‘m afraid that this is a just etched structure and there will be a risk to polish and clean them away.

Edit: reading the following comments it is very interesting that it is not just etched. Nice to be wrong. Maximum respect to the maker of the past time. I think the only way to make it is to cut the pieces of the first bar into pieces an weld that pieces on a flat steel like little mosaic stones on a flat ground

Just my opinion

Best Thomas

[stenoyab]

On the barrel of a match lock I posted a while back you can see how they etched patterns, when I removed it from the stock you can see the contrast of the old aged etch and the near mint etch (once I wiped it down).

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21076

[kai]

Originally Posted by stenoyab

On the barrel of a match lock I posted a while back you can see how they etched patterns, when I removed it from the stock you can see the contrast of the old aged etch and the near mint etch (once I wiped it down).

Yes, your's does look etched, indeed.

[kai]

Hello Thomas,

from the pictures I‘m afraid that this is a just etched structure and there will be a risk to polish and clean them away.

I believe I do see some cold shuts on the pics and believe this really is a forged pattern!

I also don't think that Leo Figiel would have mistaken a fake/etched pattern for the real thing...

The “round“ structure which looks like a wheel or a half cut orange will be possible to make as a round bar, not impossible. But making opposite cuts and fold it out will not result such a clear, undeformed pattern with one round near the other. Cutting such a bar into slices and weld let me say 30 pieces side by side on a flat different steel is possible but the weld will not so good that you ca make a long enough bar to bend it round to make a barrel.

The approach won't work as pictured - I think there is a step missing/implicated: First, the rod will need an additional layer of iron with the final cross-section being square (without distorting the circular core). Then you need to completely cut through the circular core but keep a thin outer layer for flattening out the zig-zag folds into a band. In the final configuration on the barrel, there also seems to be a slightly thicker interspersing "line" for fusing the spirally arranged pattern-welded band.

Regards,
Kai

[archer]

Thank you all for your input I will gladly respond to all your comments soon. Yesterday after a heavier cleaning (not fully cleaned yet) I wanted to prove or remove My doubts about a possible very thin lamination at the barrel lug It is now showing the slice pattern well. First I used sanding to clean and remove black spots and rust with WD 40 and commercial fiber pads manually. I did resort to a Dremel tool with identical pads on the fluted muzzle with the best effect so far for displaying the design. I'm certain now it is not an etched on effect. I etched the barrels front half after more aggressive scrubbing with pads. Scoping the bore shows the chamber restrictor showing perhaps an area where weld may be incomplete. My scanner and Pc are not on good terms. Dr. Figiel mentions different slice depths for the spiral and orange slice portions he suggests they were cut nearly thru in two directions and layed out flat side by side for forging.,

[archer]

Hi Roland I'll have to give the Chalk trick a try I'm always wrist deep in rust.
Thomas if only I could copy those portions dealing with this technique
he implies that the multi faggot designs and others were constructed separately ground or filed square and added to other billets to make up
a pattern going one way the next one in the opposite direction and joined with others to perhaps plain billets . The chevron swords come to mind. I think that time and high skill were certainly needed. I don't know how common these designs are and I'm hoping to get a feel for that. I'm fairly certain this type of construction unlike wootz could be treated a bit more harshly and continue to reveal itself.

Stenyab, your rifle is a great example of the use it had and the pristine
bright finish it still carries hidden beneath its stock. When I first got this barrel I had lofty hopes of mocking it up in a new stock and hardware now I await a nearly complete unit with some broken stock missing.
It was cheap and i find that shipping from UK to Alaska will add three times to the cost. hopefully it may a shooter?? Definitely a project.

Kai at different times cleaning and etching I too see a some of the pattern as it was laid up Just now or suns smack on the horizon bad for filming. the zig-zag pattern must have been made up of several segments and is harder to read. Now that I feel more confident of the pattern depths I'm tempted to gently try a rotating buffing wheel very carefully I can already see a clearer pattern where i cleaned the forward barrel portion more aggressively removing more dark spots and making for a clearer pattern.
Kia your right there were other steps omitted,but, the nearly cut thru slices were left together. Dr. Figiel also mentions possible molten cast iron baths used in the process. Steve