Checkering recommendatioms

[Rick Riddell]

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

[Dean Romig]

Brian Dudley can reproduce a correct Trojan checkering pattern.





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[Tom Flanigan]

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.

[Brian Dudley]

And where to YOU get 17 lpi cutters?

[chris dawe]

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 .

[Tom Flanigan]

And where to YOU get 17 lpi cutters?


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.

[Dean Romig]

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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[Brian Dudley]

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.

[Tom Flanigan]

[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.

[Tom Flanigan]

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.


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.

[Scot Cardillo]

I don’t know the answer to this but, are there metric cutters offered in the world of checkering? I ask because 17 lpi equates to a pitch of 1.5mm (ie: 1/17 = .0588) (1.5 x .03937 = .059).

Custom cutters aside, I’d imagine that, if metric cutters are/were used in parts of Europe around the turn of the century, they’d certainly have made their way into the toolboxes of individuals tasked with checkering back in the day. And now, today, if metric standards are available, a “17 lpi” cutter may very well be available off the shelf.

[Doug Mann]

If you gentlemen are serious I'll see about getting 17lpi cutters made.

[Scot Cardillo]

Pretty simple to make a tool that'll hold these + a little tuning-up (grinding) to get the rakes/reliefs ground properly for wood, but here's an option for 17 lpi spacing, provided a 60º included angle is okay.

https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/03929197

[Brian Dudley]

Recently I recut a VH that was courser than 16. It was around 14-15.

To me it does not matter much, one can cut new checkering using modern standard spacing intervals and have the work look correct. Since there was a lot of variation from gun to gun originally anyway.

Most of the power checkering tools out there are fully adjustable for spacing, so odd and custom spacing can be had. If you like working with power tools. I do not.

The old J&E company offered one handle with spring loaded spacer blades that would just attach on allowing multiple spacing settings to be had with one handle and cutter. But they were set intervals.
I am sure an adjustable setup could be made for a hand cutter, but I could see it being expensive, but if it worked well, I would certainly buy one.

Ullman Precision bought out J&E when they went under which is what got them going in the business, but they do not offer that adjustable handle in their product offering.