For building up the hook to tighten an action?

Peter Nagel was one source
http://restorativewelding.com/Welcome.html

Here you go, Steve.....

http://fflgundealers.net/k-eversull-company-inc.html

I know Peter Nagel very, very well. He is as a good of a Tig welder as I have ever encountered.


Thanks Joe...that is the man I was thinking of!

Peter Nagel did some work for me last year on a old Greener. Great guy.

eversull is VERY expensive and often refuses to work on lesser guns, i.e. 21's, Parker, Fox, LCS

bill

I don’t think Eversull does any “spray” welding. I believe his preferred method is precision laser welding. Cats out of the bag now, there’s a few guys out there now that are probably considered even more precise than Ken is.

With Tig and laser welding options out there now, does anyone even still do spray welding???

A lot of industrial stuff is repaired with spray welding, Dustin. For me, if I’m at a point where it needs to be done on a shotgun,I probably need a new gun.

Best,
Ted

I was strictly talking about the fine gun repair trade, Ted.
Hope you’re well.

I was asked to repair a spray welder that wasn't working a few months ago, and had no idea what I was getting into because I had never worked on one. It turned out to be an easy fix, because the lost permissive to run the wire feed was quickly traced to no compressed nitrogen gas flow. Someone had turned off a gas flow control valve. I wish everything was that easy. Afterward, I ran some passes to make sure it was working again. I saw absolutely no useful application to gun work. Now TIG or laser welding is another thing entirely.

So Ted, do you find it odd that you know more about welding processes than a Liberal gunsmith?

Just passing along an option. I declined the job and thought Ken might be able to help the gent. The gun is actually a Lefever and the adjustment screw is at the end of its travel with the gun still off face. I am not interested in making a screw or welding it up so I thought this may be an option. Thanks.

Might be Keith Kearcher you're thinking of? He did Tig welding to put guns back on face. I understand he's now retired.

Keith welded up a Lefever for a friend of mine some years ago. Worked beautifully but I have no idea how hw did it. Said he broke two screwdrivers trying to remove the ball and gave up.

The local spray welder has a repair facility that specializes in the repair of crankshafts from locomotives. It is an expensive process, but, cheaper than new crankshafts.
I do know for fact he hasn’t purchased a riding lawn mower blade in a few decades. If he had a close friend that needed some welding on a gun, he would likely do it. But, that type of work could not sustain his operation, and would be a distraction to it.
Most guns aren’t worth the effort of an involved repair like that.

Best,
Ted

In regards to firearms, it doesn’t really matter. Spray welding is an atiquated method when you have micro precision laser welding and TIG. Plus, the results are ugly as shit. The material used turns the bite on the hook a funny yellowish color, fugly. I’ve had two guns with intergral hinge pins micro precision laser welded and fitted up, swear to God you cannot tell any work was done. And both hooks are at almost 100% contact. That’s precision.

100% contact is probably impossible to achieve. Anybody who has done close to that is "eye-brow raising" in my book. And, it is more a function of his ability to fit than his ability to weld, IMO.

SRH

Tony South did the welding. Hodgins did the fitting of both the hook and forend. I watched him do it. Stood right there watching. I saw how much contact there was, Stan. When I say “almost 100% contact”, that’s exactly what I meant. You’re right, ones training, ability and talent makes all the difference in the world, and I paid a premium price to have the best work done.

Keith Kearcher mentioned polishing the threads on Lefever compensating screws to get them to run in a little bit deeper to get more adjustment. I've measured a few of these screws on Syracuse Lefever guns, and one of the later D.M. Lefever crossbolt guns. They are a non-standard bastard thread, and they have a slight taper which limits the travel available to put an off the face gun back on face. The compensating screw does no good to tighten loose bolting. The bolt is relatively simple to make, so just making a slightly thicker bolt is as easy as trying to build it up with welding. And sometimes you see one that was tightened by some jackass who peened the notch in the rib extension. Lefever guns are top bolted only.

I'd think trying to build up the hemispherical face of a Lefever compensating screw with any kind of weld, and then machining the hemispherical face correctly would be quite a feat.

Keith;
Apparently, the Leferver compensating screw was made in two configurations over time. I have measured two of them which had straight, non-tapered, threads. These were measured at pitch diameter, not OD, so I know the threads were untapered. What had been done was the internal thread in the frame was not tapped all the way through so the screw began to tighten as it came to position. I know that others do have tapered threads, similar to a pipe thread, though not necessarily the same taper.
You are 100% correct, the ball screw is only for taking up hinge wear & should never be tightened beyond that point to take up bolt wear. To do so will cause the barrels to not be fully closed, contacting the standing breech only at the bottom with a gap at top of the frame.

As I recall the ones I measured were around 7/16" in diameter, but don't recall the threads per inch. Pretty sure now they were a standard 60° form so could be held in a small lathe by the very end & be sized a bit with a three-cornered file, far easier than attempting to weld & fit, as you say.

Also agree 100%, if the bolting is loose make a new bolt. I have an H grade parts gun which was riding hard & put away wet as they say. The barrel is extremely pitted & has a crack, the stock is broken etc, yet it still would adjust on face & bolts tight, albeit the lever is well left of center. Amazingly with the ball screw completely removed that square shouldered Doll's Head still draws the standing breech solidly against the barrels.

In my opinion, any Lefever which has run out of adjustment has really been put through the wringer,

I agree with your assessment of the situation Miller and that is exactly the reason I declined the job. I have been doing this long enough to know when to pass on taking on a job. This was one of those times.

Don't forget Kirk Merrington; he's as good as there is on spray welding. He'll do the entire job or just the welding and you take it from there. Gil

I have removed one compensation or ball screw from a Lefever 20. It measures .522" (no taper apparent) and 22 threads per inch. It is a slotted screw and came out easily...which I did not expect. I only tried that because the frame was to be annealed for engraving and didn't wish to mess with the temper of the screw.. Fortunately I had the forethought to apply witness marks so the screw will go back in to the same depth. The threads in the frame are like Miller mentioned, tapered on the inside end which I assume is from the tap?

Sam;
I pulled the ball screw out of the junker. .522" x 22tpi. The diameter of the ball itself just ahead of the threads measures about .460", so I guess the ball size was what I was remembering as "About" 7/16" (.4375").

I, of course, do not know how Lefever threaded the frame but from being a machinist the thread has the features of having been tapped with what we today call a starter or taper tap. This will make a straight thread if run far enough in but would appear Lefever stopped short of cutting the full thread. This allows the straight threaded screw to start to bind as it enters the tapered portion or "Lead" of the tapped hole.
Taps today generally come in one of three configurations, starter/taper, plug or bottom. The taper tap has the longest lead or taper with the plug tap being a more or less general purpose tap. The bottom tap is normally used only following a plug tap when necessary to have full threads to the bottom of a blind hole.

This one is from an H grade SN 46,128. The other one I have measured was from an FE SN 38,025. I am positive they measured the same.

Do realize that after annealing & I assume re-hardening the screw may, or may not, seat to the same exact depth. The length of the bar may change a few thousandths.

Thanks for the info Miller, I will keep that in mind and hope for the best.

I have some drawings I made of four different Lefever compensating screws. Unfortunately, these were not done at the same time, and I did not take measurements in the same places on all of them.

The compensating screw from an early D.M. Lefever crossbolt gun of unmarked grade (about 7D or 8E from engraving and features) has an O.A.L of .641" The O.D. at the front (screw slot) end is .520" and the dia. of the threads at the ball end is .515" --The root of the threads at the front is .480" and the root of the threads at the ball end is .476" - So there is a taper of about .004 to .005" over the length of the threaded portion. This threaded portion is .312" long, and there are approx. 8 threads in that distance. I apparently did not have a thread pitch gauge handy at the time. The OD of the hemispherical portion is .457"

I also have measurements of two Syracuse Lefever sideplate guns that are nearly identical. One is an H grade SN 447xx and an I grade SN 553xx. Both of these also show a measurable taper the same as the one from the crossbolt gun. My drawing indicates that I measured these with a Starrett thread pitch gauge and got 22 tpi. Both of these are also a bit longer at .646 OAL.

This very small sample indicates that Dan Lefever likely used the same size compensating screw in his sideplate and his crossbolt guns, and this part of his design made the transition to the later crossbolt guns. Apparently, the patent protection ran out, but other than the rare J.A. Prechtel guns from Cleveland, I know of no other gunmaker who used this compensating hinge system.

Another drawing I have is of a compensating screw that came from a bag of parts I bought on E-bay. I do not know what grade or serial number these parts came from. This one is .645" long, and the thread diameter at the front is .521"--- The root of the threads is .484", and I noted that this one has no taper to the threads. All of the measurements I took on this untapered one are very close to what Miller measured from his junk H grade.

I don't know how easy it would be to measure the taper of the female threads in the action knuckle. I suppose it could be done with plug gauges, however, I have never checked. But you could certainly say there was likely a taper if a compensating screw that had no taper to the threads was not able to be threaded clear through. It would have to be a tedious cut and try process to stop tapping the female threads at just the right point where the screw was snugly seated, and the breech end was correctly on the face. If you went a bit too far, backing out the screw to correct the barrel fit would leave it rather loose. I haven't removed a great many of these compensating screws, but it seemed as if a couple had some sort of black compound like pitch on the threads, and I wonder if this was some early version of thread locking compound. It sure didn't help penetrating oil get down into the threads.

As I said I have only measured these two screws. Actually, I did not originally take either of them out, they had both been taken out by someone else before I removed them for measuring.

Actually, the true determining factor for whether a thread is straight or tapered is Pitch Diameter. On both of these two screws, I did measure the pitch diameter & they were both straight & as I recall were identical. Also, the od of them both measured straight.

I have no doubt that some of these guns were built with tapered threads, there seems to be ample evidence of this, I have no idea which type is predominant.

Either method would require precise control of the tap for proper seating when the gun came on face. The tapered method would also require precise cutting of the screw. From a machinist's viewpoint, I would have to say using the straight screw would be the easier of the two.

As Keith has said measuring the pitch diameter of an internal is pretty well universally done by plug gages. I have made no attempt to measure this, can only say that on these two guns, just going by feel the screws run with seemingly the same clearance un till the taper of the lead of the tap is encountered. Understand when using the type of tap I am referring to if it were run to where the lead exited the hole the end result would be a straight thread. The lead is to distribute the load over the first so many teeth, rather than the first tooth carrying the entire load.

A taper thread tap, on the other hand, is tapered for its full length. Pipe threads are the most commonly encountered taper threads.

Keith, I may have the name wrong but seems I recall there were some of the Crossbolt design guns sold under the name Waverly. It has always been a Wonder to me, why no one else picked up this feature after the patents expired.

Ken Eversull confirmed he does not spray weld but he did take the job and says he has done many other LeFevers with this issue. Many thanks for the information.

I'll throw this out there for Lefever guys. Pretty sure Bill Schwarz in Ellijay used to specialize in Lefever restoration. I believe this was before he came to his senses and moved south of the Mason-Dixon line, although I'm sure he still works on Lefevers.

I've had good luck with him tightening up two older German guns, one by welding and filing the barrel hook and the other by welding and filing the sliding underbolt. Both jobs were flawless and the guns locked up tight as new afterwards. In any case, he will never take a ball peen hammer and 'tighten' your gun (unless you are foolish enough to request it).

He also does his own rust bluing and case colors. I had him rust blue a third German gun, and the lettering on the barrels came out sharp, the barrel flats were not blued over and came out looking original.

I had one vintage SxS tightened with welding...I knew it was at best a temporary band aid.

You may be mistaken and confusing him for Bill Scwartz who was the barrel man and part owner of the Lefever Arms Gunsmithing operation in Lee Center, NY. That one never left that area of NY. He passed a couple years ago.

yessir, you are probably right. I do know that I read Schwarz/Ellijay won a gold medal in a competition for fine guns with a Lefever he restored, per Shotgun Life. I believe that story may have led me down the wrong path. In any case Schwarz in Ellijay GA is a heck of a gunsmith.