Quote:
Originally Posted by 03FXSTI
Why do all the numbers match except the ones on the crane, and inside the frame where the cylinder closes? At first I thought the crane was added to the frame after production, but then I saw that the number inside the frame there matches the crane.
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Assembly (Work #s): 3 to 5 digits, are on the yoke, yoke cut in frame near the hinge, and inside of the sideplate; pre war and early post war; the frame # in the yoke cut, changing to the left side of grip frame after model #s were assigned and also serial #s were stamped in the yoke cut at that time. You know they are assembly #s because of those 3 locations that always match on guns that are original, and that’s the only usefulness for them after guns leave the factory: still used to this day, long after serial number locations decreased.
Here's the story of the entire process in brief from 'the man' himself: which includes where in the process the work numbers were stamped in the three locations:
"I will give you a general outline of the manufacturing process up to about the 1957 period when the soft fitting department was eliminated. The company is divided into departments, forging, frame, barrel, cylinder, small parts, heat treat, stocking department, soft fitting, polishing, finishing, hard fitting, test range, final inspection, and shipping. The flow is roughly in that order.
"Bar stock is forged into frames, barrels, hammers, triggers, and side plates stamped from flat stock. These parts are all trimmed and sent to the appropriate department. In each department the parts are machined to a finished stage.
"In the frame department once the frame is partly finished a yoke is fit to it and the yoke and frame are stamped with a work number. The frame is then sent to the man who fits the side plate which is swaged onto the frame and the side plate is given the work number in the slot cut for the hand. The yoke and side plate are over size so the frame with these parts in position are sent through the machining operations so that they are blended together.
"When the frame is finished it is sent to the stocking department where a pair of stocks are fit to the frame. Once the stocks have been fit, the frame, yoke and the stocks are stamped with a serial number. Only the frame will have a letter prefix if one is assigned to that model. The frame is then sent to soft fitting and the stocks to finishing and when they are done to the inspection department.
"In soft fitting the frame is fit with a finished barrel, cylinder, and internal parts. The barrel, cylinder and extractor star are stamped with a serial number. The gun is disassembled and the small parts placed in a bin and sent to hard fitting. The frame, barrel, and cylinder are sent to polishing then to get a blue or nickel finish.
"Once completely finished they are sent to hard fitting, where the gun is assembled, the fitter stamps his mark in the yoke cut, and its inspected by the floor inspector. From hard fitting the handgun goes to the range where it is test fired and marked with a prick punch mark in the lower front corner of the cyl window, usually.
"From the range it goes to the inspection department where the first inspector finds the right numbered pair of grips and puts them on the handgun. It then goes to final inspection where all the features are inspected for proper function. Then it is packaged and moved into the vault. From there it goes to the distributor."
Roy G. Jinks
Historian, Smith & Wesson