Gold on Guns

One of the confusing things about gold on guns is that there is more than one way of putting it there - inlaid into the surface or laid on to the surface of the steel. So with that in mind inlaid gold (or other metals) should have a mechanical hold on the gun.

The way this is achieved with on lay - or damascening as it is better known - is to roughen the surface in the same manner that files were made in times past – with a series of parallel cuts at three different angles, which gives hundreds of very small teeth that grip the gold. The problem is that it works best with very thin gold and that has a tendency to wear out and get caught in things.

With true inlay a recess is made for the gold with a dovetail around the outside and when the gold is hammered in it is forced into the dovetail and is locked in place. This means that you can use much thicker gold and even have it above the surface of the gun so it can be carved back to any form you like or left flush and engraved. Some inlay work uses different metals inlaid together or gold in different colours but it should be remembered that a gun is meant to be used as well as looked at and gold will wear in time with heavy use.

The reason that we do not stick it there with glue or solder is that the guns are case hardened by heating up to red heat for a couple of hours in bone charcoal, then dropped into a bath of cold water so that the carbon migrates to the surface of the steel giving the steel (but not the gold) a glass hard finish and this would cause the gold to fall off.