VHE brought back to life.
 

This 2 frame 12g. VHE belongs to a gentleman that is not a member of this forum. The gun started out as shootable, but in overall poor condition due to a screwed and bolted buttstock, cracked buttplate and very worn barrel blue. But it had some good things going for it. That being it had a reasonable amount of original case color on the frame, decent bores and good screws. And ejector gun also.

The buttstock was replaced to the same dimensions as the original with grade appropriate wood. It was fitted with a new buttplate and the original grip cap. The forend was refinished and re-checkered. I would have liked to replace the forend as well. But it was plenty serviceable as is with just some dents and scratches in it.

The barrels had significant wear to the bluing and has a lot of very fine freckling and pitting on them. They were re-struck and rust blued. The Trigger guard, triggers and safety button were polished and Nitre blued.

An interesting feature of this gun was that all the engraving was very light and also the makers mark on the barrel was very lightly stamped as well. The trigger guard engraving did not hold up to normal polishing well and had to be all re-cut by Gournet.

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Very nice Brian!

I really like how you do the darkening for the checkering. It's interesting to see a gun like this brought up to that level of restoration. Your work is just excellent Brian.

VHE brought back to lilfe.
 

Very well done! Nice to see another American classic brought back to life.

i really like this gun..good work as usal by brian...charlie

How do you darken the checkering? Also in another post you mentioned milling out the forearm metal and water table to lighten a heavy gun. How much can the weight be reduce. I have a Dh #3 that is pretty heavy.

Preston, if you had that done to your gun you would never notice the difference. That was just one of several methods used to lighten a particular gun.

And you wouldn't want to do that on a finished gun since it would require annealing the frame, killing and the. Re case hardening it.

Parker only did that killing on the very small frames for 20g and smaller gauges.

The checkering is darkened with a dye.

What is "killing"?

Maybe 'milling'?

On the contrary, Parker would mill the lightening cuts on 0-frame 16 gauge guns and on 00-frame 28 gauge guns. I can't recall seeing lightening cuts on a 20 gauge gun unless it was a 28/20 two-gauge combination. I can't think of any 1-frame guns with lightening cuts but a fair number of very light 12 gauge guns on the 1-frame were made.

What kind of dye is used for darkening the checkering? India ink?

Yes, I was mistaken in saying 20g. I was half asleep and trying to rest after a hard morning of clearing 18" of snow. Was not thinking right.

I use a leather due to darken the checkering. Then seal over it.

What's a 'leather due'?


I know... we have 9" now and expect another 3-5 on top of the two + feet we got late last week.

Dean I think he means Dye the u is right next to it so it is easy to misspell

Sometimes I want to throw my phone in the garbage. I type things correctly and then It changes to something I don't want!

Yeah, that and 'autocorrect', the bane of someone who is smarter than his phone....

Most people I know have shut that option off.

Beautiful work Brian. I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone in saying that you are a very welcome addition to the group here and have changed the face of Parker restoration and repair. I think lot Parkers that were on or beyond life support will see generations of additional use after you do your magic on them. You are very good at what you do.

I did that, then found out I misspelled so many words that I had to turn it back on :shock:

Beautiful job again Brian.

If it's not a trade secret, I would like to ask what you use to achieve the
final surface finish. I really like that look. :bowdown:

I use Amber shellac. Just like Parker did.