My view at 6:00PM tonight. Mt Washington 120 mi's away, bearing about 230 from my back deck.

[OAITW r.2.0]

44. With ties to Saco-Lowell, I believe.

Saco-Lowell made machine tools that made manufacturing textiles/leather, water power free...

After WW2 a bunch of hot shit dudes made Saco and Lowell (in Saco) a engineering company that could take an idea and make it into a manufacturing reality in 20 weeks. New England was an incredibly great region for manufacturing.

Eventually, they became Maremont Corp.....a defense/automotive company. Made M-60 machine guns. and automotive transfer torque spiders, and shock absorbers for the after-market automotive industry (Gabriel Shocks). Worked that Gabriel line. We could build scrap at the rate of 20,000 shocks/shift. By the time quality found the problem, we had made, typically, 30 to 40 thousand scrap units.

The lesson? Quality never kept up with manufacturing capabilities to make scrap, really quick.

I didn't work on the M-60 production line, but I can tell you this. It was a feared and reliable weapon in the US armory for 40 years....I did work one summer on the firing range at Maremont in 1972 - doing endurance tests on the M-60. 3ea. Frame M-60's / 3 barrels per frame / run to barrel failure. Pretty goddam reliable. Over 1MM live rounds -> cycle 100 rounds shorts / 100 rounds open - 7.62mm bullets into the range....good bye. Sand pulverized to cement dust and wood converted to organic material. Multiple range rebuilds. And a complete hosing of the range, because gunpowder.