[Arran]

Arran

AK was indeed in autoparts business, that is what was the at the time Arthur A.K.'s business, the one he started in his dad's garage, but I thought that was mainly electric parts - motors, Unisparker ignition, generators and such, so what would he need large sheet metal machines for?

Mike;
  They manufactured electric fans too I think, as well as some auto accessory products like flag holders and such, I will have to look it up to find out exactly what they made other then electrical parts. They obviously needed presses to stamp out the bells for horn speakers as well as housings for cone speakers. They also manufactured just about everything else used in their sets, other then the tubes, in house, so they had the tools to do whatever they wanted to do in terms of metal work. There was an all steel set called the model 35 that came out in 1926 prior to these consoles, or the bread boxes, they were made like an upside down steel pan and the chassis and tubes were also upside down.
Regards
Arran

P.S Come to think of it many motors have a sheet metal housing to contain all of the parts like the stator, and brush holders/slip rings, so they probably had presses for stamping and drawing those out if A.K made them that way.