Sten Mk II

[smellie]

I REALLY don't know about Stens.

One night some time ago, while working on a museum exhibit, I had three frames sitting on the bench at the same time. They were all from different makers and they were all different.

No matter, anyway: NONE of them were like the ones I saw in Denmark, most of which had been turned out in local garages.

BTW, the Long Branch frame was the best-made of the lot. It was black phosphate finished.
.

[jeep]

The one NFA Mk 2 that I had in the 1970,s was parked and painted with a stovetop black type of paint. Great sub gun if oiled ,clean with good mags down loaded to 28rds.

[commander bond]

I hada Canadian long branch version 20 years ago. It was parked dull green.

[stencollector]

There was a light gray park on many of the Canadian stens, and this was also applied to many of the Brit stens that were in Canadian service. However, it is believed that this refinish was post war, as evidenced by an extra lot number applied to the magwell, and sometimes the trigger housing and occasionally the barrel.

From the ex-Cdn parts kits that I have seen, the early Cdn stens were a nickle blue, while the last production stens were pitch black park..

[LesterH]

I have a MKII Sten and a MKIII Lines Bros. The finish on both of them is fairly horrible and tatty. There were so many sub contrators used. I don't think there was a standard finish. The commercial version of the Sterling SMG was very well "crackle" finished. The Fazakerly Sterlings were smooth finished.

Look after your Stens they are going up in value!

[Peter Laidler]

Fazakerley were only permitted to make their Sterlings for the UK MoD and that's the reason they are phosphate and paint instead of commercial crackle. That they were only permitted is actually wrong too because they weren't permitted to do anything of the sort. In few words, they pirated the design from Sterling. Sterling threw their teddy out of the pram but Fazakerley still went ahead pirating the design at the behest of the Ministry of Supply. The little Sterling Company got as far as serving court papers for breech of copyright personally on the factory manager, naming HIM, personally for the breech of copyright/IPR breeches and therefore liable for millions in costs and damages.

It was only THEN did the Ministry of Supply take the case over and then, the Government of the day. They simply couldn't win but STILL fought the case. After all, they're fighting using/wasting YOUR money! Eventually, they lost the case and Sterling were awarded total costs and compensation.

Sterling did get a small afterthought contract for the UK Military and theseSterling guns, marked US xx Axxxxx are the UK Military spec smooth sunkorite black

However, the publicity was good and Sterling never looked back. The Court case prevented Fazakerley making any more guns, spare parts or magazines and the factory manager, who'd escaped by the skin of his teeth from total bankruptcy for breeching the copyright laws, even after he'd been clearly told he was breaking the law was hauled up before the judge and gived a dressing down to end all dressing downs. He was sidelined into a corner until the factory closed

I think I am digressing but that's the story of the Sterling smooth finish L2A3's

The post war finish for Sten guns was the usual phosphate/paint. But given that its service life in wartime was 70 hours, the finish was academic really - so long as it was baked black