Thank you for sharing. This is a very interesting perspective compared to today's manufacturing processes. I can only imagine if we had to pay for each flawed piece of work allowed to move through work today
I've not done much research on these even tho I have one dated 1861 but weren't the parts assembled at the tower armory, else why mark them Tower?
Model 12 is right some of the sub contractors shipped a lot of sub standard pieces. I'm sure the sub contractors didn't hold to the rigorous inspections the RSAF did.