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Show Body Plant Combats Machine Tool Bottleneck r p?-4 "f-Tp4 rT--fT'" : rC " ' t ' J .: 71 Adjustments on this cutting ma- I 1 . t j ( J A, l I J dune are so fine It could be '. ' 1 1 - . I brought down on the crystal of a - - . ' watch without breaking it ; -rvv f ' - r- . l - -$L Si i This Fisher Body pattern shop nor- 'i)Sffh' .f mally works on new body models. ,f u ' '5! '3!f : ' w :'' Today it Is turning out patterns for huge Z!&Fj' " "-8r& y- planing machines. 1 2--tr'"-r " V V' , i li I V" Workmen Rho ordinarily woula A-'I-i-4-' " 'T, , i : Vi A ia---- ,4 be engaged in producing auto dies V'4rt''; f 1WV V A now are busdy assembling planer, at Vfl-VrA : 'v ' : an unheard o ratft Here is the finished r ! J sw' ! planer, one of the largest tpe in Jv v " 5- existence. It will help to relieve " - - a serious machine tool bot- v 1 ' i'w.rias. II Ueneck. A " ' ' ' " ' 4 ' ' -..v. -.vJ..-sA.-..J..vw..... fr B ll,llMl-ffrtfy,ViiiMi1iaYa-fTt TO HELP relieve a shortage of machine tool equipment the OPM asked Fisher Body to manufacture 100 mammoth planers because the company which normally builds them had insufficient capacity to supply the full requirements of the defense program. Backed by the tremendous resources re-sources of General Motors and more than 30 years' experience in fabrication of the huge dies and special tools needed in automobile body manufacture, the body-building division swung into its new task. Less than two months after the contract was signed the first planer was delivered by the Grand Rapids, Mich., stamping plant. Fur thermore, it agreed to build 125 instead in-stead of 100, and in only 10 months time. Ordinarily six months are required to build even one. This is an outstanding case of how General Motors, like others in the automobile industry, is swinging swing-ing wholeheartedly into defense work. The Grand Rapids plant's equipment and facilities, never before be-fore used for anything but body work, were so adaptable for this particular job that it was able to step into the task at high gear with virtually no new machinery. To help speed up the job, the Grand Rapids plant called upon another an-other Fisher Body unit to assist. Shown in the upper left photo is Fisher Body's pattern shop in Detroit, De-troit, which produced patterns for the huge planers. The men in the foreground are completing the center cen-ter bed for a planer which, when finished at Grand Rapids, will be more than 43 feet in length. In the oval a workman is machining the front section of a planer. The lower left picture shows the assembly as-sembly section at Grand Rapids, where a virtual assembly line was set up, believed to be the first of such magnitude ever created. And at the lower right is shown a completed com-pleted planer which will be immediately imme-diately shipped for the OPM and put to work at once on the nation' defense job. |