Parker stock colors

[B. Dudley]

Never tried it...

[Bindlestiff]

Austin Hogan wrote an article in the Volume 6, Issue 1 of Parker Pages Jan/Feb 1999 on stock finishes. It's worth digging out if you are interested in Parker stock finishes.

[King Cobb]

You can also find it in the archives on a post he made regarding french polishing. Its pretty informative, but I just don't have the confidence to try french polishing by myself without someone who knows what they are doing.

[chris dawe]

I'm curious as to what one of the lifetime pros like Brad Bachelder or Dave Trevallion would say in this regard ,perhaps one of the forums esteemed collectors could comment if anyone would know the finality of the subject it would be them ,I mean there's guys there who collected Parkers as did their family before them ,questions and conjecture be damned these guys bought the guns from Parker when they were actually in operation .

[Eric Estes]

I too would like to hear more opinions from experienced craftsman. With all due respect to Brian I would be surprised if Parker only ever used amber shellac. That may have been their primary finish for most production guns for most years, but they would do most anything a customer would want and we see constant surprises on this site of the different things Parker Brothers would do. I would imagine the same variety might apply to their finishes? Over the decades of production is it possible they tried a few variations?

[Bruce Day]

Charlie Prices PP article is highly suggested for refinishing to original standards.

Shellac is an ingredient of French Polish but I am not aware that orange Amber Shellac was used. Some original guns with light colored wood were lightly stained with walnut stain or a reddish stain, perhaps alkanet. Others had no stain in the French Polish. Still other original Parkers had an oil finish only, boiled linseed oil with Japan dryer.

If a person is trying to make the stock look old, dark is better and some stain, walnut or reddish is added. This duplicates the darkening effect of age on a clear finish.

[edgarspencer]

I have two guns purchased by my dad from Parker in Meriden. One has a glossier finish which I presume to be shellac. The other has an oiled finish. Neither have had their checked panels darkened in any artificial manner. I have always believed that checkering darkens from being handled and because of the very small cross section of the individual diamonds. In my opinion, darkened checked panels on a lighter stock look like my Aunt's Daisy, or a Nylon 66.

This gun had it's checkering seriously buggered, and is just back to me from North of the border, getting the checkering tidied up. I deliberately took a couple of the pictures of the gun on one of my American walnut boxes, which has had a dark walnut stain, and 4 coats of tongue oil. This was freshly sawn and planed new wood. The stock has no stain on any part of it, just a nice oiled finish. I am trying to show that there's walnut, and there's walnut. Some of it needs a darkening stain, and a good quality old gun stock may not need any artificial coloring

[Dean Romig]

Here are a couple of photos sent to me, by a collector, of an original Remington Parker DHE stock. About as red as I've ever seen.

However, the silver trigger guard and silver skeleton steel but plate give me cause to wonder....




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