Not Easter Eggs?

Big Red here with a riddle for you….

So, TAKE FIVE!

What are the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” connection between M-1 helmet liners and egg crates?

Don’t feel bad if you guess wrong, this one stumped Joshua too.

The short answer: Steel Pressing Dies.

Now for the long answer,

In February of 1942, when the Chicago Quartermaster (CQMD) assumed responsibility for procurement of the M-1 helmet liner, they inherited a very precarious situation. They took over a contract previously issued by the Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot (PQD) to McCord Radiator & Manufacturing Company for what the Quartermaster referred to as the fibre liner.

McCord was the prime contractor to the Army for this liner type. McCord was technically a liner assembler as they subcontracted for all the components which were delivered to McCord who then assembled the suspension systems and then installed them into the fibre body they subcontracted from the Hawley Products Company. This particular contract had been placed by the PQD as a stop gap measure to ensure steel helmets had liners until the desired high-pressure method plastic liners the Army desired could be developed and attain sustained production.

The only M-1 liner related drawings that existed at this time were postmortem drawings of the fibre liner put together by McCord’s engineers at the request of the Ordnance Department, who issued the initial contract for this item, to have for their records. The M-1 helmet with its fibre liner, currently in production, had already dictated the general shape the liner body would need to be and because the steel helmet was not wearable without a liner, the CQMD had their work cut out for them.

The Army wanted a phenolic resin liner formed under high-pressure however, at this stage of development the Army had no clearly defined design specifications, standards or drawings to guide the CQMD and the manufacturing partners they would need to produce this product only existed as an experimental industry.

The Chicago Quartermaster Depot faced a multitude of obstacles as they pursued the development and manufacture of a plastic liner. Two of the biggest issues being the Quartermaster suffering communication issues between branches as to who had authority to issue material priorities in conjunction with the slow reaction time of the Standardization Branch, the other being unforeseen industry related issues ranging from the need to design and acquire the necessary tooling, equipment and training of personnel to the skill levels needed.

These two obstacles collided immediately after the issue of the first high-pressure liner contracts when both contractors and the Chicago Depot attempted to acquire the molds necessary to form the new liner. First, they realized that no material priority had been issued to attain the steel necessary for the molds and that they had no access to the Keller-Machines necessary to make the molds.

A Keller-Machine is the 1940s equivalent of a modern computer driven CNC milling machine. It worked by placing a wood or plaster pattern of the shape desired on one end of the machine and a block of steel on the other. A feeler rode along the contour of the pattern while a cutter moved in tandem along the steel block cutting the shape. In this way the pattern could be copied into steel.

While the Chicago Quartermaster Depot and The Quartermaster General worked out how to attain an A-1-a rating to acquire the steel necessary for the liner molds, both the QMC and the liner manufacturers began to scour the local area for machine shops or small companies that might have Keller-Machines that could be leased in order to make the necessary molds.

Amongst the companies found to have available Keller-Machines were those engaged in the manufacture of *egg crates. These companies used their Keller- Machines to fashion the steel molds necessary to press paper into the egg-shaped containers that protected the eggs during shipment.

*“Contact was made throughout the country with shoe factories, plants that made egg crates, and small and large machine shops to secure loan of their keller apparatus so that an adequate number of molds could be made available as soon as possible.” - Chicago Quartermaster Depot, *CQMD Historical Studies: Report No. 5, The History of the Helmet Liner* (Chicago: Historical Branch, Technical Information Division, Army Service Forces, 1944), Chapter II, 28.

Now you know….

Remember.

if your friends want to know how you gained your intel, tell em

Big Red Says!

FIVE'S OVER  -  MOVE OUT!

Hey wait Big Red, what about the Kevin Bacon thing?

 Ahhh… yeah, not sure where I was going with that.

I guess eggs go well with bacon?

BRB-011