You can't judge a Parker by how it looks on the outside
 

I put 4 boxes through my recent acquisition and by that time there were sprays of old brown oil on the tables that had been thrown out the firing pin holes or from the slot in the tables, so today I figured I better dismantle it and getterdone. Phew. Took all day to dismantle, clean, and reassemble it. I thought the trigger guard was going to break before breaking loose; I had to gently knock it loose with the little Lyman nylon hammer. Take a look at these pictures. Look at the case colors and the tables. This gun has not seen that much use and was well cared for. All you guys who have Parkers that have not been apart in 50+ yrs, this is what they will look like inside, regardless of how clean they look externally. EVERY Parker I have taken apart looked at least this bad, save for one that someone got to before I got it. The trigger blades and parts always show the most corrosion from water easily getting in. Some are FAR worse than this. I've spent up to 10 days on this same chore in the past, especially on old hammer guns that have screws to tight they just don't want to budge. Heating the head up with an electric soldering gun is the best way to loosen them if they're glued in by old oil. Works like magic; I used that on several screws on this gun, including all the floorplate screws. Every little spring in the gun was totally gummed up with solidified old oil and nearly inoperable, which is a safety issue in my book. I'm never sure an old Parker is going to always work out in the woods until I dismantle and inspect/clean it out like this. Despite the amount of old oil inside the wood is near pristine, for which I am very grateful. I was expecting much much worse considering all the hardened oil on the outside that clogged the engraving and screw slots. All I did to the inletting was wipe it down with a cloth and scrape out a little oil. This series of pics starts with the grunge and corrosion then proceeds to clean parts ready for reassembly. The two trigger blades show one clean and one grungy; which one do you want in your gun?? This is why I take every Parker I purchase apart, usually before I ever shoot it, as I like to inspect the sears so I know the gun is safe. Trust me, they are not all safe when we buy them; I had to send the locks on one hammer gun out to have the mangled and broken sear ends rebuilt. I did a little dressing of the sears on this one but they were pretty good really. I just can't live with leaving a gun this dirty inside as the corrosion will just get worse. Save the resource I say; these treasures are just on temporary loan to us.

All I can say is.....

WOW!!!!!

You are a braver man than me..!!! But, the before - vs. - after pictures sure are incredible...

Nicely done, Sir... Very nicely done..!!!

:cheers:

John

What John said!!!!!

Yeah me to! I don't touch screwdriver or any type of tool that way I can't make something worse. Next fall perhaps you can stay at my place for a few days. I have some cleaning that probably needs /should be done:rolleyes:

And a nice Parker becomes even nicer. Thanks Rich.

I agree with John, exactly! Good work.

Great post!

Thanks for the post.

Thanks all. Notice the nice blunt firing pins too. They make a nice big, round and deep indentation just like an old Parker hammer gun! No mamby pamby little dents and misfires from this gun. I really like that. I was breaking clays with it out past 50yds yesterday. The F/F chokes really powder them even that far out. I'll post a pic or two of the wood tomorrow.

makes me shiver to think whats inside my old parkers...i want be able to sleep now richard with what youve showed us....i know those old parkers really appreciate you as do the rest of us here on the tube.....charlie

Thanks, Rich. Nice work, nice pictures. The problem is that too many do not approach the work with the same care and methodical manner. Spray penetrating oil on every screw and just let it sit for a day or two before even attempting to turn screws. So many mangled screws and lost parts.

I need to do one this winter, waiting for a miserable day where its too nasty to go out. You get plenty of those up in Fairbanks.

Wow, nice job on the clean up! I'd never have guessed that gun would have been that cruddy inside! Good go of it though, good job. Jerry Andrews

They ALL look like this inside Jerry, and many look much worse. Fortunately, this one was just oil vs corrosion, except in the trigger group, so it cleaned up quite easily, and for whatever reason, the wood was not oil soaked and punky as it could have been. I have some old posts showing others I have done the same to. My DH12 looked much cleaner than this one externally and was almost this bad inside. My Remington hammer gun looked cleaner than this outside and was much worse inside, with far more corrosion, and took 10days to clean up, mostly due to waiting on stuck screws. There are definite pitfalls to these cleaning adventures. When you get some of the screws nice and clean they no longer index properly; one side screw on this gun was/is like that; I may try reversing them to see if that helps. None of the floorplate screws was in the proper hole; the one with no marking was up front instead of by the trigger guard and was not indexed properly. With experimentation, I think I got them right now. Floor plates are often bent from someone in the past now knowing how to properly removing them, as in trying to tap them out without removing all the floorplate screws. The front of this one was that way, proud of the receiver and I had to lay it on a thick flat aluminum block I have for just such things and carefully hammer it back to the proper shape with the little nylon hammer, which is a delicate operation no matter how you do it; major pucker factor involved here I assure you. It still isn't quite perfect but is better than before. And it seems that no matter how careful you try to be, it's just all too often that a screw slot gets a mark or two from your efforts, even when it's not a badly stuck one. That happened on this gun also. It's very difficult to get a gummed up slot clean enough so that the proper driver will fit properly. Round toothpicks are the best tool for that and it takes 5-6 toothpicks to clean a single slot most of the time, and the narrow slots on the sides are so thin it's very difficult to clean them. Dental picks get into the corners of the slots better then toothpicks, but I can personally guarantee that if you try metal cleaning picks of any kind, you WILL scratch something, generally the case hardening on the receiver.... been there. Don't do it. Ever. Never. Please. I don't care how good you think you are, don't use metal picks to clean screw slots. Use 20 toothpicks if you have to, use 50, and lacquer thinner to soften that last little bit in the slot ends; they're cheap and if you don't get that last little bit of gunk out of a screw slot that pretty screw driver you have will NOT fit properly and you will bugger a screw eventually, guaranteed. Every one is a learning experience. My work area is pretty cluttered also. At one point the little spring in the plunger that comes out the front of the receiver bounced off the work bench onto the floor to my left. I could not find it and ended up emptying out a box of about 300 28ga hulls sitting by my feet, checking each one for the spring. Eventually, after moving everything within 6ft, which was a lot, I found it on my right side on the floor. Phew; that was too close. I was about to email you to see if you had any Parker parts carcasses. When I get the receiver out I put it into a large jar of lacquer thinner in the sonic cleaner and let it buzz away for about 30 minutes. It's incredible to watch the amount of gunk that comes out. I then spray the inside with Ballistol and let it drip dry. That stuff is incredible for this. It dries enough to form a coating that will not run off and protects the insides very well and doesn't seem to turn to varnish like regular oil does. It's the best innards preservative I've seen to date.

Thanks for a nice post, I appreciate that information, and the toothpick idea is a great idea! Jerry

I go through hundreds of round toothpicks cleaning old guns. You run one gently down a rib junction that looks just fine and without fail, a nice curl of old oil comes out just like off a drill bit in a drill press. And no marring of anything. Nice. Try it. You'll never go back.

Thanks much
 

Thanks for that, I appeciate it, Jerry

Richard

Have you tried bamboo toothpicks? I would imagine they would be somewhat more durable than standard toothpicks.

Cheers
Marcus

Bamboo would work great. I have a few but don't generally use them for guns. I wouldn't use them on the rib joint as they are hard enough(lots of silica in bamboo)to potentially scratch the solder.

Nice job and thanks for some tips on how you do it. I haven't run into any as bad as you have. What I've found on a number of guns is cracked, or cracks just starting in the middle of the stock as you look back at it after being taken off. Just under the top tang. I just bought a Trojan and upon taking the stock off I found a small crack just starting. After soaking in acetone for a day to get all the oil out it was super glued with the good stuff from Brownells. Should be good as new. The rest of the gun other than a couple of pits in the barrels is just fine. Someone took pretty good care of it. Paul

Good on you Paul. Keepem shooting. Am posting pics here of the side engraving of the VH12 of this post. What's with these heiroglyphics? Is this how they all are? Anyone see a K and an E in there somehow? Is this a "late Friday afternoon" gun or something? Was the engraver nipping on his bottle of rum that day? Looks more like PARNHR, with a dyslexic N
to me! These pics are blowups of macros taken with a newly acquired 12.1 megapixel Canon S1300 Powershot. They are selling them off all Best Buy and the box stores for $110 bucks now because the newer S1400 is out with 14?megapixels. The S1300 is all most anyone could ever want in a small digital camera; I would highly recommend getting one if you need a small digital camera; it's an incredible buy and they won't last long at that price.

Thanks for the post. I certainly agree with you about the innards. That has been my experience with three now. One was quite expected because the outside looked terrible as well. If one is not a do-it-yourselfer, it would be worth taking most any acquired Parker to a knowledgeable double gun smith for that once a century cleaning. Toothpicks are the tool of choice for screw slots and patience helps. It took a hundred years to get to the state the slot is in so it need not be cleaned out in ten seconds. I used a lot of toothpicks on the rib to barrel join and started losing the required patience. I found that snapping a cedar shim lengthwise gave me a very thin, almost knife-like, edge with a thick "handle". That was able to be worked along the rib in long strokes and took out the crud faster than how I had been progressing.

It does take a bit of nervous puckering to get over the idea of taking the gun apart but once you do it, then you do want the unseen guts to be clean as well. Proper tools and lots of questions asked here will get first timers through it.

Cheers,
Jack

The snapped cedar shim tool
http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/cpg1...108603_045.jpg