Checkering recommendations
 

Was curious to see who might be out there for a basic Trojan forend pattern? Recommendations or options would be great!
Thanks guys!

Brian Dudley can reproduce a correct Trojan checkering pattern.





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The checkering on a Trojan is a basic and easy pattern to cut. But you need to make sure that whoever you send the gun to has experience doing mullered borders correctly. I find doing proper mullered borders relatively easy, but for some reason, many doing checkering don't do them or get them wrong. It is easy to mess them up if they are not cut carefully. I cut three border lines and then use a concave tool to widen the middle line and finish up with a bent file to widen the "muller". It is important not to encroach on the two outer lines. This is where a lot of folks doing mullered borders mess up.

Many will cut the new Trojan pattern at 16 lpi which is not correct. All of the Trojans I have worked on were originally cut at about 17 lpi. It is a small point, but it's the small things that make a big difference in the quality of the job. It has to be done right. Brian would be a great choice but I imagine his backlog might be large. However, if I didn't checker myself, he would be the first door I would knock on to get the job done.

And where to YOU get 17 lpi cutters?

I have to say ,I too was wondering about the 17 lpi cutters.

Rick ,if that's the same cobbled up forend you sent me a little while ago it would have been an easy thing to cut that pattern for you if I had of known .

You can’t buy a 17 lpi checkering cutter. If the Trojan stock is a refinish, there is usually enough of the original pattern showing so that the lines can be re-cut using a single line 90 degree V edger or pointer, in conjunction with a jointer which helps keep the lines perfectly straight. If it is a re-stock, then the lines have to be done at 16 lpi. Most wouldn’t notice 16 lpi vs. 17 lpi but I do. I am a fanatic about this type of stuff. True 16 lpi checkering looks “off” to me.

Fortunately, graded Parkers use 18 lpi to 26 lpi standards. The Trojan is the only Parker model I have found with off standard checkering lpi. Maybe some are a true 16 lpi, but none that I have restored are. Attempting to re-cut 17 lpi checkering with a 16 lpi cutter doesn’t work. It can be done, but it never looks right, in my opinion.

Many of The Parker Brothers workers and contractors made their own tools and some of the tools were made to their specifications. Today we buy our tools made to somebody else’s specs or to a standard.






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In graded Parkers there is easily a 4 lpi swing, even within grades. It depends on gun to gun and also era the gun was made. I have seen original DH grade guns with checkering as course as 18 lpi and I have see GH guns as fine as 22 or even 24 lpi. And I have seen Bs that are courser than some Gs.

Of course when I talk about like spacing, I speak in modern day tool terms since many original guns made 100 years ago with handmade tools are not exactly a given spacing. All the time I am gauging various guns and finding that more often than not, the original spacing is somewhere in-between the common 2 line intervals seen today.

[QUOTE=Dean Romig;266571]Many of The Parker Brothers workers and contractors made their own tools and some of the tools were made to their specifications. Today we buy our tools made to somebody else’s specs or to a standard.

Exactly Dean. Although I have never run into an off standard lpi on a graded gun. They might be out there, but fortunately I have been able to use standard cutters for all but the Trojan grade.

True enough. Fortunately, on graded Parkers, the smaller lpi’s will accommodate standard tools even though the spacing might not be exactly the same. For example, an original near 20 lpi or so pattern can generally be handled with a standard modern 20 lpi cutter. Not so with the larger lpi checkering patterns of the Trojan.