Lets' review the process. The bracket was created by a stamping process. I can visualized at least six steps in a 50 ton stamping machine from a roll of steel (that may have sat in a field) to a finished bracket. In each step, oil was sprayed on the item to facilitate the process, you don't want the item to jam up the press, and in each step, the item was lifted from the die to move to the next step. The item was cut at the last step and unceremoniously dropped into a container. "Scratches" were normal. The finished brackets may had been dumped in a tank of solvent to remove the oil, and it may have gone in a hot bath of phosphoric acid, rinsed and oiled again as a preservative. But that's it. It was not shiny steel.
Jim
I was the Production Control Manager in a large hi-tech facility in Silicon Valley that had a 30 ton stamping press in one of the buildings.
