doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Parker rib section with dolls head/removable?

How is a Parker dolls head including the aproximate two inch section of top rib removed? The gun is a GH, the rib would be soft soldered but I think the monoblock is brazed together with the dolls head section possibly being soft soldered on. Not sure. Thanks in advance.

I was recently told by my double gunsmith that it is soldered in.

The short top rib piece w/the dolls head (one piece) and the rest of the breech section (tubes & lug) is furnace brazed together on Parkers I believe.

But Kutter, look at the seam alongside that section--it's silver.

Soft soldered dollsheads would sure make it easier to fit in production. You'd just fit the barrels up on face without the dollshead, then solder the dollshead/stubrib in place with the gun locked up.

The doll's head rib extension is silver soldered on. I can attest to at least two that I know for sure were silver soldered. Two guns that "blew up"; one was the one Tom Armbrust, Sherman Bell and I (as an observer) blew up in the overload test. The other is a "long story" I won't go into. If the rib extension was soft soldered it would not add much strength. IMHO

I've taken a few sets apart on damaged beyond repair bbls to salvage the rib extension piece.

Nothing fancy to salvage the part. Acetylene and red heat.
Brazed together or hard soldered. Lots of heat in any case.

Not just Parker, but the other names too.
I'm sure there's some that are not, maybe the early Ithacas(?).

Maybe any soft solder seen along it's seam with the bbl is overlap from when the ribs themselves were soldered in place.

Mr. Potter is correct. On many American SxS barrels you can often see a braze line either on the flats or around the top extension joint area at the chambers face. I have only seen one Parker dolls head rib section come loose and it was also somewhat "held" in place or at least aligned with a vertical pin. Often times you can see this pin through the rib matting or it will be engraved on and around non-matted Parker ribs.

Channing

My sample of one Parker damascus gun was silver soldered. I could see it clearly when I re-layed the ribs.

As for how much strength the dollshead adds, my opinion is that it's nearly nothing. If you look at the necked area it's about 1/4" wide. That might be small, but still add some strength. But then when you flip the barrels over and look at how shallow the piece actually is, then see that it's slotted to guide the extractors, it's pretty clear that it's a cosmetic feature, probably put in the design as a result of the marketing pressures of the time.

On later guns (Remington made?) the dollshead was added after the barrels were assembled. Many unfinished barrels were around in the 1980s without a dollshead, just a short mortice to locate it. As Chuck pointed out mainly to guide the ejector blades.