Dwight and Others,
From my own experience, While serving my apprenticeship, in the late 1940s, I was working part time in an old machine shop that was equipped with machinery dating from 1850 to 1906. And this was a small shop by comparison.
I'm speaking of the old overhead line shaft driven machines where all 40 or so machines were driven buy a single very large electric motor which had a flat leather belt up to the array of line shafts over head, thence through smaller leather flat belts down to each machines multiple step pulley.
All speed changes were made with a shifter or hand operated stick, where the belts were forced from one step to the other while still in motion.
Note, this accounts for the most often ocurring industrial loss of limb accidents, Getting hung up in the moving belts.
The usual high ceilings needed to accommodate the line shafts made for very poor lighting and electric lighting was thought to be too expensive for more than the minimum required to see ones immediate machine and many operators used acetylene lanterns, which they purchased themselves.
Work in these shops prior to WW-1 was most probably done during daylight hours from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm for the sake of economy. And yes the 12-hour workday, six days per week, was the norm for those times.
Someone posted a photograph of a Mauser factory a short while back and yes the shop that I worked in was even worse than that.
I would presume that the Luger Factory very similar. It was probably, as was the shop in which I worked, in the industrial portion of town, inhabited by the coal fired railroad engines and we had a switch line passing through the shop, to load and unload heavy shipments.
This was "Par for the Course" in those times.
Of course as the nation moved toward war the workday was split into around the clock shifts.
It was probobly two shifts of 12 hours.
For me I only worked 8 hours each day but still it was a trip back through time from 1947 to 1890 and back every day.
There is no dought my mind that these beautiful weapons that we are so fond of came to life under such conditions.
If any one calls that The Good Old Days, I can tell him much more, because the shop in which I worked was as dirty as a coal mine. I have worked with an ex coal miner Who complained that the coal dust was what he quit mining to get away from.
Sorry for the long-winded post but it was a long dirty subject and someone had to say it!
Been There, Done That, Ain't Gonna Do It Again!
Viggo
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