A little M.E.D. History

[VERNIG.PETER@FORUM.VA.GOV]

M.E.D. = Manhatten Engineering District
 
Thought maybe people would be interested in a change of pace.  This was
related to me in a talk Mr. Bill Coors gave to Leadership Golden.
 
Coors Porcelain got it's start when Germany was embargoed in WW-I.  At
that time it was the only producer of scientific porcelain used in labs.
The government encouraged companies to get into the business.  By the
eve of WW-II only Coors Porcelain and Champion Spark Plug Co. were still
in the business.  Champion decided to concentrate on spark plugs and 
sold the scientific porcelain business to Coors.  In that transaction
Coors got a dry porcelain fabrication process developed to produce the
insulators used in spark plugs.  The process allowed an insulator to be
made in a day rather than the weeks it took in the prevailing wet process.
I presume that is because the wet has to dry out pretty thoroughly befor
machining.
 
Mr. Coors was running th porcelain business and after the war had started
he got a call from Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.  LRL started ordering
custom insulators, providing drawings but no specifications.  They had
no time and material formulas to determine charges so Mr. Coors just
kind of guessed at what to charge.  The attraction to LRL, of course was
the rapid turn arround, a week or less, versus a month or two.  Mr. Coors
said he did most of the machining himself, as he enjoyed it and it got him
out of the office.  He said he usually shipped the next day. After 
months of that the orders stopped.  What Mr. Coors didn't know, well, 
actually he didn't know anything.  But anyway, LRL had been designing
the electromagnetic seperation aparatus [Calutron, I've been told].
 
When the M.E.D. let the contract for building the facility again they
provided only the minimum information, it can be assumed.  The contrac-
tors bought insulators from their normal sources of supply, which meant
they were produced by the wet process.  Remeber the dry process was 
developed for spark plugs which operate at high temperature.  Turns out
the wet process insulators begin conducting current at about 250 F and 
at 500 F acording to Mr. Coors they conduct electricity like a metal wire.
 
The first run of the first full scale Calutron must have been very
exciting as every insulator on it blew!  Mr. Coors had to give up
doing the custom machining himself as he could no longer keep up
with the demand.
 
Peter Vernig, VA Medical Center, Denver. vernig.peter@forum.va.gov