Ithaca NID color casing
- Thread starter NiceOldDouble
- Start date
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That came out cool. Don'tthink I've seen at blue before. Nice work.
OP
Customer only sent me the action, not the whole gun.
beavershooter
Active Member
Not bad for a flame color job, those screws need to be dressed up and timed
OP
That is not a flame color case job. You never tighten the screws all the way to their timed positions when coloring, or during the prior annealing step, only at the end during reassembly because they will seize.
beavershooter
Active Member
What did you use for the color job ? It looks good and the stripes on the tang of the Parker and the Ithaca are nice ,they do remind me of a couple of flame jobs I have seen but these are nice also
OP
For all of them I do at my shop I use and EvenHeat oven, stainless crucible, 3:1 ratio of wood to bone charcoal, 1400 degrees, ramping for an hour and then a 2 hour dwell, quench in city water in a metal trash can. The Ithaca was the bluest I’ve gotten. The Parker had some decent colors, but a lot of lighter areas, so I revisited an old tempering technique which involves coating everything in oil and cooking it again at 400 or so to darken the straws to more of a brown. It did some interesting things, but it will likely be annealed and done again. Same gun will turn out different each time it’s done, even if no perceived process variation occurred. Very odd in that way.
beavershooter
Active Member
Ok that makes sense, the bone and charcoal mix does give a nice look .are these firearms considered shooters for the occasional quail hunt or just decoration for the gun room?
Beaver … do a search for NiceOldDouble’s post and just see his past works of art. He’s done two for me … and with proper vintage loaded shells they are shooters.
Also as to his work he is in a very elite group, American Custom Gunmakers Guild, that includes the Doug Turnbull among them. He may be a smallish business from NC but he can run with the big dogs … and 1 day I hope will so we here can say “We knew Bill when …”.
I have been lucky to handle some American Doubles with original case colors and they are all a little different .Some great articles in the old Double Gun Journals on different colors .Oscar Gaddy was the guy on match the right case colors per maker Think my favorite was on the sidelock Levefers