Pleasure doing business with you

[Jack Cronkhite]

Sometimes you encounter a gem of a person who works on firearms for his own pursuit of happiness. Not a business - maybe a hobby but I encountered such a gentleman. He was in construction a decade or more ago. Had a medical issue and that ended his working days. He likes guns and rifles so he bought himself all the necessary equipment to do bone case coloring and hot bluing. I saw some of his case color work on a few pieces that were for sale by another person who gave proper credit for the work. From that, I was able to make contact and discussed "second chance gun" - a long term project or so it has become. I sent him the frame, trigger plate, top lever and trigger bow. He called to say he finished it. He said it was pretty rough but he did his best. He too has a couple Parkers and said the colors came out like a Parker should look but he went on for some time about not being able to completely remove some pitting because the border engraving and the Parker Bros words would be put at risk. You can see how rough this gun was HERE (http://parkerguns.org/forums/album.php?albumid=130) I think he may be a perfectionist. We spoke at length and I finally asked him how he would like to be paid. He said "See if you like it first. If you do, send a cheque, if you don't like it don't send anything". Now I know I will like it, no matter what, as I know how much time he put into trying to make the proverbial silk purse from a sow's ear. I'm pretty sure this will make a nice addition to the "After" album pics. Probably take a week before it arrives here and I will post some pics then.
Cheers,
Jack

[Dean Romig]

And when we all say how much we like the results you'll post his name and contact info, right?

[Jack Cronkhite]

Dean: His name is Oskar Kob from St. Peter's, a small village on Cape Breton Island. He is in his 60's. The four pieces were done for $275 - "if I like them". It would have been less but for the extra time and effort put in to trying to get below pitting but not eliminate engraving. Being in Canada; once a frame is involved and if you are south of the 49th, you will have to go through the whole export/import process. Other bits and pieces aren't an issue for that. He is closer to you than me by a whole lot.

Cheers,
Jack

[Dean Romig]

Thanks Jack. I wonder if King Brown knows of him.

[Jack Cronkhite]

Received in the fullness of time and the vagaries of the postal service. These parts were severely rusted and well pitted. It could not be taken down to completely clear metal or the border engraving and words would be gone. The frame and floor plate were re-color case hardened using the bone/charcoal technique. Due to the depth of pits, after the parts were quenched and cooled they were coated with a lacquer, which I will take down with FFFF steel wool (sent with them) until I achieve the desired lustre relative to the rest of the gun. As for its "second chance" this old VH had a day at the spa.

Cheers,
Jack

http://parkerguns.org/forums/picture.php?albumid=128&pictureid=2726http://parkerguns.org/forums/picture.php?albumid=128&pictureid=2728http://parkerguns.org/forums/picture.php?albumid=128&pictureid=2729http://parkerguns.org/forums/picture.php?albumid=128&pictureid=2730http://parkerguns.org/forums/picture.php?albumid=128&pictureid=2727

[Rodney Short]

i live 20 minutes from oskar, he has done my swedish husqvarna underlever hammer 12 gauge, it came out like a new gun, he does superb work, ,

[chris dawe]

I've done a little job with Oskar myself ,top notch work and a top notch man to boot,he's very cautious and well learned in the subject, and from what I can tell he research's each job individually before starting the process.

[Paul Plager]

That is really nice work. I like the olive colors the bone/charcol method brings out.