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[i]By July 1959, [William] Dubusker, the tooling superintendent, had completed McDonnell's first surgically clean 'white room' for the later manufacturing phases, had taken on the job of manufacturing manager for Mercury, [193] and had moved some 200 workmen onto the new production lines. Learning to fusion-weld titanium .010-inch thin in an encapsulated argon atmosphere was his first challenge and proudest accomplishment. But before the year was over, Dubusker had to contend with retooling for other unusual materials, with rising requirements for cleanliness, with stricter demands for machined tolerances, and with higher standards for quality control. [Edward M.] Flesh, the engineering manager, and Dubusker drew on all of McDonnell's experience with shingled-skin structures around jet afterburners for heat protection. Their machinists had previously worked with the patented metal, René 41, a nickel-base steel alloy purchasable only from General Electric, but arc-jet tests of the afterbody shingles on the outer shell of the capsule showed a need for some ingenious new fabricating techniques.[/i]
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