Keith, thanks for the reply. I always learn quite a lot whenever I take on one of these project guns. Your comments are always helpful and give me grist to chew on (my completed Lefever G as example). I am not a collector, although my wife would say otherwise. I have only one Parker, this GH.
For this Parker I am working only on the forend with the aim to recut the smoothed out checkering and get a finish that is not inconsistent in color and feel with that on the stock. (I may do the stock after I judge my success with the forend). Close examination of the stock does suggest shellac as I can find one very small spot (maybe 1mm) at a junction of the pad and heel where a small chip, only present in the finish, is present. My experience is that as finishes go, shellac chips, oil wears. I am also of the opinion that the original finish has received a neutral colored top coat, very thin, perhaps a thinned BLO with dryer, but on there nevertheless. What do I base this on you ask (or not)? The stock finish is satin luster, with somewhat filled but still open pores and I can see this finish in the checkering cuts. I believe shellac at 119 years would or should look quite dry and the checkering cuts should not have a deposit of finish. (On the stock checkering I may try to use alcohol and a suede brass brush and see if whatever is there will dissolve. If yes == shellac, no == ??). If shellac I can always re-coat the checkering with a 1# cut of blonde or orange.
At the moment I am working with an alkanet (to get a reddish tint) and orange or garnet shellac finish (on a practice forend of approximately the same 100 year age).
Should you know of anyone with a copy of the very pricey book 'The Parker Story', I would like to converse. My understanding is that Chapter 10 concerns the Parker stock making and finishing process. How much useful finishing detail there is in this material I do not know but would like to find out.
I also will be trying the use of caster oil described by Newell in his 1949 book on Gunstock Finishing and Care. He recommends a 4% (4ml to 96ml) caster oil to shellac. On my practice piece of course.
As a final top coat I may use a neutral wiping varnish to provide some additional resilience in the field. My guns have to earn their keep. In the Ohio woodcock coverts, full of multiflora rose, thorn-apples, wild grape, and prickly Hawthorne, a wood finish has to be resilient. No safe queens or gun show "look at me" babes allowed here.
