ORIGINAL: bsindel
Your comment that you had limited success in punching out these little metal head gaskets got me wondering how in the heck Cox was able to turn these things out by the thousands. Do you have any idea of what kind of tooling they used?
Hundreds of tiny little elves running hundreds of tiny little lathes?
Seriously, when you think about the gazillions of tiny little super accurate parts that Leroy & co. turned out way back in the fifties, WITHOUT CNC, it's mind boggling! I've run across some posts here & there from ex-Cox employees that described Cox's automated screw machines, custom made equipment and "Tem-Trol" process but never in enough detail for this layman to get a grip on it. When you think of the low prices, it's even more amazing. I keep hoping that someone with first-hand knowledge will document all of the processes before they're all dead & gone
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The closest I've seen is Dan Sitter's series of articles in Model Engine Collector's Journal but it's more about the finished product, when they were marketed and rare one-offs, etc. Not very much about the nitty-gritty details of production.[
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