Kutter,
It has been mentioned before, but let me repeat: you consistently add a wealth of knowledge and experience to this site and novices like me greatly appreciate it. How many old time LC smiths were there at Marlin back then in CT? They must all have passed on by now.
Thanks,
Thank You..
At that time ('72,73) only 2.
-John Miller who was in his mid 60's at that time . He showed me the most about the LCS in the Repair Dept.
-Larry Sisson . He was in his middle 70's already at that time and only working part time because he was collecting S/S.,could only earn so much..
Larry was a true mentor. Worked all of his life in the Ct gun industry. Started at Winchester before WW1 when he was 14. Talk about an encyclopedia of knowledge.
Marlin was at that same time putting out the 'New LCS' .
That 'new at the time' LCS was fairly close to the orig in design but had quite a few changes for mfg and assembly expediancy.
Neither of the above gentlemen wanted anything to do with the gun. Hot blued bbls w/ glued on alloy ribs . Hastily bedded stocks done with hardware store quality epoxy.
Those were assembled by just a couple of the regular line assembly people,,IIRC they were off of the C/Fire Lever Action assembly line,
They would do up LCS's a couple AM's a week, that was about all. Maybe M,W & F (?) We worked a 1/2 day on Sat as well so I may have the schedule mixed up but it wasn't a full time production like the rest of the guns were.
They had to allow time for the epoxy to set on the stocks and bbl rib sets they were working on.
Marlin had problems with the bbls. More than few split open upon firing at the breech. There was a bunch of the damaged ones returned by customers safely stored in a locked chainlinked fenced area in the parts loft over the mfg floor.
There were other Ka-Boom guns in there as well.
We could see them but not get at them to handle them of course.
Stocks splitting was another complaint,
The amt of orig older Marlin and LCS parts they had was amazing. All packed, factory numbered and carried up from the NewHaven plant in the move to North Haven in '68.
Not much was ever done with them. Most requests to repair older guns were finally rejected on the excuse that 'no parts were available' inspite of truck loads of them in every sort of phase of mfg.
Lots of raritys too.
But management saw no $$ in repairing the older stuff, so that phase was going away. The LCS repair of orig mfg guns from the general public was slowing to a stop as well. Brophy saw to that.
Repairing that 'new' LCS they were stuck with.
Many of those old parts eventually sold to a few people with an 'in' with someone in management I was told.
Most went to Numrich over the years.
