A Leather Covered Pad for a Parker Repro

Here is a 12 gauge Parker reproduction that was a bit short for its owner.  He opted for a Silver's pad, with spur, and wanted it leather covered.  There were also numerous dings and scratches in the wood that needed repair, so the butt and forend were also refinished.  It's no secret that I think pretty highly of the reproductions but they do have a few aesthetic shortcomings, such as a wood finish that rivals the finest assemble-it-yourself furniture, a wrist that is slightly tapered to the thumbhole (not much can be done about that) and the curvature of the heel is far too great.  Here, I've corrected the first and third issues.

Due to the small amount that the stock was shortened, combined with the width of the spur of the original buttplate, the resulting spur inletting necessarily had to be a bit larger than the spur that is supplied on the Silver's pad.  This was corrected by building up the spur with epoxy.  Since the pad was being covered, I didn't bother dying the epoxy.  At this point, the pad has been fit and its periphery reduced by the thickness of the hide. 

Here is the pad, covered.  The leather is still "in the white", meaning that it has not yet been dyed.  The wood appears much darker than it really is, due to the lighting and camera setting.

 This shot more accurately shows the color of the wood.

Here is the finished job.  I also made, engraved and finished a new breechscrew because the original did not index properly when tight.

These photos illustrate the curvature of the heel that I mentioned earlier.   The repro buttplate is a stamping (the originals are a machined forging) and the exposed checkered portion of the wood is a separate piece, glued on.