Building the Stevens Favorite

[Tom Griffin]

Tonight's task was to cut the relief in the stock for the mainspring assembly and get it mounted. That involved making something I've never made before, wood screws. Their purpose is to attach the stock to the receiver through the upper and lower tangs. They are 3/16" diameter (#10) and about an inch long, with oval heads and the typical tapered sharp V thread used on wood screws.



The shank of the screw was turned to .188 and the taper attachment used to turn a 10º included angle taper.



The threading tool is 30º instead of the normal 60º and has a .058 flat on the point. I broke two of them off before getting wise and using a center in a super small center hole. I withdrew the tool at the end of the thread for a cleaner look, easy to do on the Hardinge with its quick acting lever on the compound. The same can be done on any lathe by stopping the spindle at the end of the thread and rotating it by hand as the tool is backed out with the compound crank.


Cutting a 90º angle under the head of the screw to match the countersunk holes in the receiver.


Parting off the partially finished screw.



The diameter of the head finish turned and parted to length, leaving stock for the oval shape on the head.



Machining the oval head on the screws with a form tool.



Cutting the screw slots using a collet block in the mill with a .045" slitting saw.


The finished wood screws.



Cutting the relief pocket for the mainspring assembly on the mill.

 

[Tom Griffin]

Hopefully the migration process is over on the site and it's safe to post. I've gotten into the habit of watching hockey lately and haven't done much on the Steven's so tonight (after the game) I started making the firing pin. It's simply a 3/16" diameter piece of drill rod, turned down on one end, flatted for a retaining pin and tapered to the traditional wedge shape used on rimfire cartridges.



After turning down one end, it was mounted in a collet block on the mill, centered with an edge finder and the flat was cut with a 1/8" 4-flute end mill.



Then the block was turned on end and the wedge shape cut with a 45º end mill. I had to break out the eye loupe to measure the .020" flat with a rule. The opposite end gets a radius to match the rear contour of the breech block. Rather than go to all the trouble of setting it up on the rotary table, I'm going to take the easy way out and just mount it in the breech block using the block as a pattern to cut the radius with the belt sander. I got too late a start tonight though, so that will be on tomorrows task list.

 

[Tom Griffin]

Here's the finished firing pin installed in the breech block. Another member pointed out that the newer model Favorites have a modified firing pin to prevent possibility of gases from escaping around it (inches form your eye), so I'll probably do a re-design on this one.

 

[mranum]

Haven't been able to check in for a while now as work has me hopping, but holy crap this is really a thing of beauty coming together!

Have you given much thought to the final finish? Hot blue? Rust blue?

 

[Tom Griffin]

Haven't been able to check in for a while now as work has me hopping, but holy crap this is really a thing of beauty coming together!

Have you given much thought to the final finish? Hot blue? Rust blue?

Thanks Matt.

It is coming together but there is still a long way to go. The receiver and lever will be color case hardened and the rest will be hot blued, that is after everything is polished and heat treated.

Tom

 

[Tom Griffin]

No pictures this time because the part has already been made once. Last night I re-made the link that connects the lever to the breech block. The link does double duty by also moving the hammer to the half cock position and I wasn't happy with the way it worked. A redesign moved the part of the link that pushes on the hammer farther away form the hammer pivot point. Now it does what it's supposed to to do without binding. That's the thing about prototype parts; sometimes they need to be tweaked and remade but it's all part of the process. Once the action is working to my liking I'll probably harden it to prevent damage to the sear and notches from playing with it too much.

Tom

 

[Tom Griffin]

A little update on the Steven's: I haven't been making many chips lately but the project has been far from idle. After two re-designs, the link/cam is finally moving the hammer to half cock properly, without binding. That turned out to be a bigger problem that expected because many of the parts in the linkage do double duty and changing one of them can have a significant effect on how the the others behave. :thinking:

I've also been designing a tang sight. It won't be an authentic Steven's design because I don't have access to one for reverse engineering. Instead it will be a blend of different features on various tang sights that I've found across the internet. Elevation adjustment will be made by loosening the threaded eye cup and sliding it to the proper graduation on a vernier scale on the side of the frame. There will also be a windage adjustment via a small dovetail slide in the block that the eye cup mounts to (not shown in the image below). So far I have the base designed along with the frame, the sliding nut and a first crack at the eye cup. There are still some details that need to be worked out in the windage adjustment before the design is complete.

There has also been some progress in figuring out how to drill and rifle the barrel. I've found an inexpensive hydraulic pump to pump the oil through the gun drill, so that problem is solved, but am still waiting for a drill the correct size to show up on eBay. Once it does, and I make a cat head for my lathe, it'll be time to drill the barrel, using the spindle on my mill to drive the oil pump. I've come to the conclusion that it's just not practical to rifle the barrel on my lathe. There is a nice video on Youtube of a guy who built a gear train on his lathe to twist the rifling tool as it passes through the barrel. It looks like it would work very well but I would need to modify my lathe to mount a gear on the saddle hand wheel and I'm not willing to do that. I'll probably end up building some sort of dedicated fixture to do the rifling, so I'll definitely need to make more than one barrel to justify the work.

Tom

 

[alemonkey]

This is a great thread! I'm slowly learning the basics of machining and the other day I bought a basket case 1915 Stevens Favorite, and I stumbled across this thread when searching Google for information. I have a receiver and all the internal parts, but the action screws are missing and the firing pin is buggered up on both ends. I've made a new firing pin, but I wasn't sure on the overall length so I made it longer than needed and figured I would file it down to the appropriate length. Could I bother you for the dimensions on the one you made? I could use the trial & error method, but I'm afraid of puncturing the rim of the case if it's too long.

 

[Que]

amazing work. what is really something is all the various equip/tooling you are using. if I only had a bit of your skills. excellent postings and thanks for sharing with us all.

 

[jumps4]

I really look forward to your next posts
that is really nice work and great pics
I never remember to take pics
and the ones I did take were lost letting the kids use my pc downloading free games fatal virus backup often
steve