M1917 helmet marking question

[aef1917]

Whoops, i was conflating two different things in Dean's book, one of which had to do with W and another with an even more obscure mark also used by A. I'm not sure why he mentions ACF and T-W in conjunction with the W steel (which you nailed by the way), since in thousands of documents, I've never seen any evidence that either of them pressed from the lot of 4,000.

You've got Y and J.

C being Budd isn't speculation.

I don't think U is US Steel, since American Sheet was part of that company. U also turns up with B and J, and they all have high lot numbers, which makes me suspect that they were from the big contracts awarded in August 1918. Contract information from that period suggests that U may be American Manganese Steel Co.

[aicusv]

You may well be right. At Budd we had an alpha coding system to identify the Mill the steel came from. Not just the manufacturer , there was a different code for USS Fairless (F) and USS Sparrowspoint (S). The coil code was an multi digit alpha/numerical system that that identified the the manufacturing mill, date it was rolled, and the characteristics of the metal. Our Planning department would have to match the steel to jobs and schedule production runs. My position with Budd was in Material Management, which include tool storage and steel receiving and storage. Once we received a coil of steel it would be assigned an ID number, from then on it would always be referred to by that ID number.

At one point before the helmet tools were scraped I had then stored on special shelving in their own area.

[DumpsterBaby]

aicusv,
interesting that in the case of the Kubelwagen production, business interests transcend political bounds, even in war. Not very surprising, just interesting haha. I'm having trouble understanding the Ford-Budd relationship for these helmets, and it's probably my own lack of business understanding. From what you are saying, it sounds like Budd took the helmets from start to finish. So Ford basically held the contract for the sake of money flow and control? Or maybe they had their own liner assembly and distribution for all the other companies that pressed shells...

aef1917,
Thanks for validating some of my speculations. I had no idea that U has also been paired with B and J. Strange that Dean would bother mentioning ACF and T-W specifically, but if neither of them can be validated for that lot, it is what it is. At least some of the mystery is cleared up. Is August 1918 the approximate time for the ambiguous late-war boost in production? I've seen that referenced in several places; the exponential increase in helmet production prior to the end of the war. I haven't thought to correlate that time frame to contracts though.

[aicusv]

I've never seen or heard of Ford having any other location producing the helmets or assembling them. Budd was the sub-contractor for this. Ford's in house production facilities were at capacity so they would sub jobs like this out. This way there was no interruption of their vehicle production. Ford would tell you how much they would pay for a job to be done, you had to figure out if you could do it and make something or not. There were times we took jobs on at a lost, but made it up else where. Don't get me started on the marketing and economics of the E.G.Budd Co. (which isn't in business any more).

[aef1917]

T-W was a producer of manganese steel, so it's possible that Dean meant that the two companies worked together pressing helmets from T-W manganese alloy. This makes sense, since T-W didn't ever manufacture helmets. His book is very good, but there are some omissions and some things that only make complete sense with considerable further information.

Ford certainly utilized more facilities in Philadelphia than just its own plant. In addition to the Ford building at Broad and Lehigh, they leased space for assembly and storage at Alexander Brothers. I haven't seen anything about Ford subbing to Budd for assembly, but my documentation doesn't go all the way through 1918. There are mentions of trucking shells from Budd to Ford, and at least one photo of a loaded truck at Budd's dock so at some point Budd wasn't involved with the finishing and assembly.

My information probably isn't complete, but based on what I have, there was a lull in helmet contracts after the initial round in the summer of 1917. This is probably partly a function of the ramping-up process, as many companies had not yet completed their contracts until early 1918. Additional contracts for ~400,000 helmets were awarded in May, followed by a big jump up to ~750,000 in August. A final flurry in October came too late, and only very small numbers seem to have been manufactured before the contracts were cancelled.

[DumpsterBaby]

Ah I see, I sort of had it backwards about T-W then. Yeah, maybe that was Dean's implication. It gets a little hard to follow sometimes. It certainly appears to be worthwhile information but seems to assume some knowledge of the reader, so I definitely see what you mean there. Your information is far more complete than anything I have cobbled together so far haha thanks again aef. I'm not trying to have anyone simply give me the answers here but I would like to know what other reference material you could offer, if you'd be so inclined? I've found a handful of publications, old and newer, that don't really offer anything greater than surface level info. I have yet to start scouring contract and acquisitions records, but if that's what it takes...