Restoration of Fine Sporting Arms
 

Though I am generally disposed to positive stories with happy endings, this is no such story. I will reserve comment for later, as I am too angry at the moment. Furious would be more accurate.

Several months ago, I delivered to fellow PGCA member, JJ Roberts, a very nice, perfectly functional, somewhat historic 1910 Parker VH. It had belonged to David J. Hasinger, world record holder, hunter for the Smithsonian and amazing adventurer. On his business card, JJ Roberts touts, “Restoration of Fine Sporting Arms”. JJ recently recommended on the gunsmithing thread John Gillette of Classic Guns. John did the color case hardening on this gun and attempted to reassemble it. I will let his and JJ’s work speak for itself. I will not comment further now, other than to describe what I requested and what was returned to me.

When I delivered the gun to JJ, I requested the following:

-Reblue barrels
-Pick engraving
-Re-do case colors
-Remove electric pencil etched name from action

First, is a before picture of the gun. What follows are pictures of the atrocious mess of non-functioning parts returned to me today. You will note the pile of additional parts not in the gun, the absence of the front bead which was incredibly lost and JJ pretended not to notice it was missing, the buggered screws, the gaps between wood and metal, the one protruding firing pin. Btw, none of the parts that are supposed to move, move. The safety doesn’t work, the triggers don’t function, the barrels are off face, cock-eyed, you name it. And that’s only what I can see as an untrained, regular guy who simply likes to shoot.

I will soon send the gun to a well known double gunsmith who has kindly agreed to evaluate the gun to determine if it’s salvageable. More to follow. Sad day.

Joe Graziano

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Whaaaaat!?! :shock:


It almost seems the frame may have been warped from the color case hardening process.



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You may take some heat for this post, but thanks for sharing.

-Victor

What a shame Joe ... what a sad day is putting it mildly

Yikes....I am sorry to see that.

Unfortunate... as polite as it can be.

Wow, good reason for you to be disappointed..............

I for one am glad you did not "bite your tongue" on this one.
That is a criminal act equivalent to slashing a painting or tipping over a sculpture. Tragic.
Has the offender offered any restitution? Taken any responsibility or shown remorse? Was any explanation offered?
My sincere condolences.
That makes my stomach hurt.

Wow... that IS bad.

The frame did warp. You can see the fit against the stock. It stands up high at the top and stands out on the bottom. The forend iron is warped too.
Hopefully the gun can be fixed, but it would require annealing and re-hardening. And a lot of praying that things have enough memory to go back to where they were, Or at least close. The barrels will likely need to be set back and refitted to compensate for the movement.

The condition of the screws, and the gun not being assembled is completely inexcusable. And a blued top lever on a Parker??!!


I personally would not have removed the name from the gun, it wasn't crudely done and it wasn't just Joe Blow’s name. It was evidence of the history of the fine shooter of the gun.

Sad and shocking. I'm so sorry this happened, but thanks for sharing the story.

I have a good, original VH of the same vintage. I feel like getting it out of the safe and hugging it....

I would agree with this. As to the rest of it - I'm speechless.
Almost like going to a funeral, and not knowing what to say to the bereaved.

I appreciate everyone's comments and inputs. I will leave the restitution question to private discussions between the parties. The point about removing the name is taken. What I regret most is doing anything at all. It was a perfectly functioning shotgun and in attempt to restore it's beauty, the shotgun may have been destroyed by unbelievably poor workmanship. And yes, that's a blued top lever! Didn't see that one coming. A proper evaluation will soon determine whether the gun can be repaired. When I dropped off the VH for restoration, I could not have imagined the hideous mess of non-functioning, butchered parts that would be returned to me, minus any parts lost along the way, such as the front bead. Brian, I hope you are correct in that annealing, hardening and fitting could possibly put it back together again. If that is the case, I will be a happy man. Today, I am just angry. However, I will hold my fire until I know more and give Mr. Roberts and I the opportunity to work together to resolve this matter. I will update the post as I have more information. Until then, hug those Parkers tight:)

Something that surprised me beyond the initial shock of the gun being in pieces, even the engraving is a disaster. Compare the engraving on the action around the screws before and after. It's just a mess.

Absolutely disgusting,how can they send you back your gun back that way they should be paying you for the gun not you for restoring that’s why sometimes you have to leave thinks the way they are, I usually don’t post much just read the great information I get from the Parker guys, but when I saw your pictures before and after it made my stomach turn good luck.

Did he give you any indication that there were issues before he shipped the gun back to you, or did he just send it to you for evaluation?

My biggest pet-peeve about abused Parkers is buggered up screws. It's something that can easily be fixed even if you put them back in the white or give them a quick blue. To do a full restoration and put back screws like that is pretty crappy. All the other stuff on top of that is inexcusable.

Sorry to see that. I'm interested to see of the smith will hop onto this thread with an explanation.

Chris, I picked up the gun directly from JJ Roberts last night. I knew there were problems reassembling it after case hardening. It had gone back to Classic Guns to be reassembled. I spoke to John Gillette personally and he asked it be returned to him when JJ Roberts could not resemble it. John claimed his crucible thermostat malfunctioned. JJ said John mistakenly removed the bottom plate before hardening and that caused it, and that John didn’t pay attention during the hardening process due to declining health. I have no idea who is telling the truth and I don’t much care. Between the two of them, they butchered the gun. Right now, I don’t know who mangled the screws. Buggered seems to be too mild a term for it. After a couple months of John Gillette “working on it.” I asked that it be returned. According to JJ, the gun came back as he sent it to Gillette. Gillette had not done anything. I had no idea the extent of the damage to the gun until last night. That is how I received it, in pieces with an apology from JJ. No plan to do anything, simply an I’m sorry. John Gillette did not apologize. To date, neither has made an offer to make this right, or a plan to fix the gun. This has gone on now for several months. I will keep the remainder of the financial matters between JJ Roberts and me. Just unthinkable levels of incompetence. Staggering.

Are you out any money for this abortion of gunsmithing?

Of course he is!! The loss in value of the gun for one! What a shame!

So sorry to see what happened to your gun. Also, I really appreciate your sharing the information with us, especially because I know it must be painful to recount. You've helped many avoid an equally bad situation.

How does this happen? I can understand the frame warping, but the screws and engraving, especially if thats your schtick and you advertise classes for it. I just cant wrap my head around it. You think someone who advertises fine sporting gun restorations would have at least called and replaced the screws and fixed up the engravings, better to have a warped action with all the pieces than a warped action with frozen buggered screws and missing pieces. Its a shame the way you were treated, I can understand things can happen when dealing with guns, but you are the customer and hopefully they make it right.

While I can certainly understand Mr. Graziano's frustration with his Parker's "restoration," there is something about this thread that makes me uneasy.

Perhaps it's that the "prosecution" has presented its case... but the defense has not.

What's more, there's an expectation that the two aggrieved parties attempt a private resolution as gentlemen before any public airing of issues. I don't see evidence of that yet.

There are two sides to every story. And I'd hate to see the PGCA Forum even partially descend into the vile mire of ego, incivility and negativism that another notable "BBS" has become.

Some avoid top restoration artists because of expense. Makes top shops look cheap like Turnbull Restorations. Just my opinion. This case is hard for me to believe. Hard to believe anyone with a brain would even return such a train wreck to a customer and expect payment.

Number one; I would recommend that the moderators not close this thread. Next, I would say that Mr. Roberts has said that Gillette admitted to some serious neglect on the handling of the receiver and maybe other parts. At this point, I would be retaining some legal assistance to recover damages from Gillette. I'm sure he has business insurance that covers such problems. It is up to him whether he feels he can continue his business after his admission that he is "not up to it". The total loss of a very nice VH 12 gauge shouldn't exceed $4500 or $5000 with expenses adding very little. Insurance or a private settlement should compensate the owner. End of story for everyone. No lies, no foul. If a refinisher is "not up to it", let him retire with his reputation intact.

This makes sense, and yes, I'm sure there is another perspective. Although it might be good to know what that is, I also feel like I'm a bystander to all of this and perhaps don't need to know (or should not know) all of the details.

I do think this: If we (as we have) asked to see the results of restoration work done by various smiths and these photos were shown to me, I would not consider sending my guns to that smith for work...whether I know the circumstances or not. As difficult as this matter is for our colleague, I still appreciate seeing the work done by various gunsmiths, no matter what the result. I can draw my own conclusions.

John, I'm glad you brought this up.

Joe, get a grip. You said that the gun came back to JJ from Gillette with "nothing done". That is obviously not true. It did not come back with "nothing done". Start from the beginning and tell us the real story.

Mr Roberts did a Dog painting for me, very pleased with the work. Never thought if him as a gunsmith, artist was my understanding.

William

This should never have been released from either shop...Period John G. damaged the gun in his case coloring, but JJ. should never have accepted John's work. This is a huge cluster F.ck that no one want's to take responsibility for! If they did it would never have come up on the forum

I meant is he out any payments he made for the so called work done on this VH. Sad story

Bachelder left , original right.

Bachelder and Turnbull charge more than some others.

John, your point is well taken and something I considered before posting. I think the photos speak for themselves. Regarding money, I do think it’s best to keep the specifics between the three parties. I will say that am out the initial payment but that was promised to be returned tomorrow and I expect that it will be. I am however, currently out a Parker shotgun. I expect this will be corrected one way or another with time. I don’t ascribe malice to what happened. Hopefully we can work together to resolve it. You are correct in that if a resolution had been offered, that would have made things exponentially better for all.

In my opinion, it would be foolish to spend another dime on this gun. Any annealing will soften it, but it will erase any 'memory'. Annealing it would only soften it so that it could be mechanically manipulated, and that's a total black hole. I say this because I spent over 30 years making steel, then heat treating it. If a casting warped in heat treat, it was always possible to anneal, straighten, and re-heat treat. All luxuries I may have had are lost once a part is finish machined.

Mr. Campbell makes a very valid point as there are two sides to every story and we haven't heard from either one of the other parties involved.

John Gillette and JJ Roberts have both done work for me and in every case it was well done. What happened to this particular Parker is a travesty to be sure but lets not get the cart to far in front of the horse in a rush to judgement regarding the other involved parties.

Rich, I agree. This is an open forum and the other gentlemen are welcome to participate in the discussion. I would love to know what happened between the time I dropped the Parker off, until I picked it up several months later in its current condition. Only those two gentlemen know the answer and I invite them to provide it. The Parker is on its way to be evaluated and will update the post after that is complete.

If your point of sale was with Mr. Roberts your dispute is with him, period.

Sounds to me that Mr. Gillette made an honest mistake, and owned up to it instead of slinging bs (which actually says alot about the man). How it's resolved in order to make Mr. Roberts whole, as a result of his indebtedness to you, is between Mr. Gillette and Mr. Roberts. Mr. Roberts, from the sound of it, should be doing whatever it takes to make you happy and as hard as it is due to your frustration, which is understandable, you've got to allow him the opportunity to do that. Sorry to hear your project went sour. Even the best screw up sometimes. Good luck achieving a favorable outcome. I agree w/Edgar, once final machining's occurred..straightening things out is a tall order.

Scot, you are correct. Again, this is a collector’s forum and my post is about what all can agree is a restoration gone terribly wrong. I have met with Mr. Roberts and we have agreed on a path forward and options for resolving the matter, which I appreciate. I will know in a few days whether or not the frame is repairable. I will update the thread after I know. My update will only involve the restoration of the Parker, which I trust is understandable.

Kensal,
The man did not prosecute anyone. He presented the work done and showed the results and gave his actual(photo) and anecdotal evidence of the facts based on his dealing with the men who performed the work. I very much appreciate the fact that he took the time to do this based on his business with people who restore the guns we all pursue. I guess if you lawyerly folks think there is a case to defend, then ok, defend it. From the evidence presented I think you might want to just plead it out as SHIT work and move on. Kensal, You certainly might be a witness for the defense as you like to "lightly restore" guns. Good luck, but I think you have a looser here.

Personally, I think this should be the next Parker of the month to remind people that we should shoot them and not try to make them young again. I feel bad for the owner but I think he should just hang it on the wall and the next time he wants to take a Parker and put lipstick (new case colors) on it he can have a reminder of what might happen.

Patrick Lien

Darn well said!

Bruce,
How much Flitz did it take to get Bachelder colors toned down to be comparable to original faded Parker colors?

Patrick Lien