Another new development was a quick-change gearbox. The first version of the lathe had only the fixed gear train. To change the speed of the leadscrew, and thus the pitch of the thread that was being cut, gears had to be manually changed in the gear train. The quick-change gearbox was a transmission that enabled the leadscrew speed to be quickly and easily changed: Fig. 5. The first one was shipped May 17, 1940. In June 1940, 29 lathes were shipped - a record figure at that date - and in 1940 the second addition was built onto the building (Fig. 6). It brought the total floor space to approximately 7000 square feet. I felt this very personally as it eliminated the yard in which I had always played. By this time the front two rooms of the second-floor apartment had been converted to an office. Both the office and the living quarters were too small.

On August 4, 1940 a company picnic was held at Leighton Park. There were over 60 people there, employees and families. The company furnished pop and ice cream. A key entry is for January 16, 1941: "Paul is drafting the lathe with one inch collet capacity." This development was interrupted by the war, but eventually went on to became the much improved, more capable and more expensive Model 200.
In January 1941 we moved from the apartment to our new house, which was about six blocks from the factory. This freed the entire apartment to be used as offices. Saturday Evening Post for October 25, 1941 had a picture of a Clausing lathe in an article about a man who was making bushings and steel spindles for anti-tank guns. This article was mentioned in the Ottumwa Daily Courier, the local newspaper.
The big news in the factory was a new Heald Bore-matic, which arrived on December 24, 1941. This was a machine tool that was in a class above the other machine tools in the factory. It was used to do very precise boring of two aligned holes from opposite ends. The primary use was to bore the bearing seats in the headstock. By this time the United States was in the war. The War Production Board kept a roster of the Heald Bore-matics so that they could used in vital war production. It was later used on the second shift to do precise machining on a part for a gyroscope. The big push now was more production. The factory had just been expanded in 1940, but that was now inadequate. Options were obtained on the two lots to the north of the factory. The first lot had a house, which had always been occupied by a family. The second lot was vacant. At this time the company had an extensive dealer network, the lathe was well received and most of the production problems had been solved, and with the onset of the war the only problem was to increase production.
The economic situation for the Clausing was looking up. Early in 1941 we moved into our new home. Otto's family moved to a much better house. Better cars had been bought. Otto bought a 1936 De Soto in 1939, and Paul bought a 1937 De Soto in 1940. These were huge improvements over the previous cars and houses.
The War Years
In April 1942, 2500 square feet of space was rented in the Hardsocg Wonder Drill Company and by the middle of the year 1942 shipments were at about 70 lathes per month.
There were now several office ladies. Abbie Martin and Mary Dayton worked in the front offices doing the secretarial and bookkeeping work. Mary had started in June 1941. Abbie Martin probably started about the same time. There is a diary entry that Mary and Abbie went to Chicago on vacation together in August 1942. Other ladies who worked in the office during the next few years were Lucille Mottet, Bonita Napier, and Gretchen Collet. In August 1942 after Lyda Clausing graduated from high school she started working to do the drafting.
The state of the drafting was interesting. At first there were probably not any drawings, Otto and Paul kept everything in their heads - the parts themselves told how to make them the next time. However, this is not very satisfactory and Paul had started to make drawings. Ray Graham had done drafting at least part time, but then he left for a better-paying job in the wartime airplane industry in Ft. Worth. When Lyda arrived, Paul trained her, and set her to work making drawings. I am not sure that the drawings ever completely caught up with the actual production and even when I worked there in the summers of 1947-1951 there were some still some important details that seemed to be primarily in Otto's head.
In November 1942, 85 lathes were shipped and by March 1944, even though shipments had reached 100 per month for the first time, production was also started in a house to the north of the factory. I remember often visiting my cousin Bonnie (Otto's daughter) there as she operated machine tools - she worked her way through college in this way.
Another addition to production was the shop of Deneen Graham in Bloomfield. In mid 1944 he had six men employed making parts for Clausing Manufacturing Company.
During the war many employees participated in bowling leagues. There was a company team in an industrial bowling league. Also, there was an intramural league within the company that had many teams. Paul was one of the best bowlers. Although his small stature kept his speed down, he emphasized accuracy.
In the mid 1940s most of the other investors were bought out. The only remaining investors, besides Paul and Hilda Clausing, were Gus and Martha Bischoff in Milwaukee.
Meanwhile, the factory building was proving inadequate for the larger company and in May 1945 a site was purchased on the bank of the Des Moines River, across from the Irving elementary school. As it was an old creek bed, there was much filling to be done. After clearing the land, the footings and foundation were poured and the filling began. A barge was built with a pump to send a slurry of sand and water from the opposite bank of the river where the concave side of a large bend provided a supply of sand that had settled out from the river's flow. This process worked to some extent, but gave a lot of trouble. Finally dirt was hauled in to finish the filling work. The brickwork was started on January 11, 1946 and in late May 1946 the move was made to the new building (Fig. 7) at 235 Richmond Street. The old factory was sold to be used for a bottling works. The new building was 21,000 square feet, about three-times the size of the old factory..

Post-war Era
In January 1947 the shipments were 133 lathes - the business continued to be a success. However, in the following years two setbacks occurred a flood in 1947 and a trading recession in 1949; the flood, in the summer, was  the worst in the history of Ottumwa and caused great damage. When Paul had selected the site he inquired, and found, that the worst flood on record would not have affected the location; however, two years later the water was almost three feet deep in the factory. There was a little advanced notice, so some things were lifted up so that they were not inundated but it took much work to clean up the mud and get operations back to normal. I personally waded in water up above my knees to help put small items up high. After the flood I helped push out the mud.
After the war some men were made foremen. Harold Buchanan and Paul Walker are two who come to mind. Later Roy Kirk and Fred Sutton were made foremen.
In 1946 both Mary Dayton and Abbie Martin left to be married. Lyda Clausing left to go to school, and then moved to St. Louis to design dresses. Lucille Mottet left, probably in 1948, to work in Ames, Iowa. Ladies who came in included Mary Kay McGrath, Ruth Peterson, Elizabeth Coble, and Gretchen (Collet) Saffel.
Late in 1948 a new lathe, with a 1-inch collet lathe, the Series 200 (Fig. 8) went into production; this machine represented a big advance being a very capable lathe with distinctive styling; it looked good and was capable of excellent work; the first one was shipped from the factory on March 31, 1949.

Fig. 8
200 Series lathe on a semi-cabinet stand.

Although the business was a success in immediate Post WW2 years, in 1949 the United States entered into a fairly severe recession. The machine-tool business is always boom or bust and when the economy slows down, the purchase of a lathe can always be postponed. Paul Clausing was also finding that most of his time was now spent talking to bankers, lawyers, union leaders, dealers, and doing paper work - and this was not what he had in mind when he set out to make a better lathe. The Company now had two good lathes, the 100 Series and the 200 Series and there did not seem to be a need for Paul to develop another, which is what really interested him; as a result, Paul rarely worked in the factory. However, one Saturday Paul and Otto worked together all day to realign the two heads on the Bore-matic. It was tedious and frustrating work, but for Paul it was a welcome respite from all of the chores that come with being a successful company.
One bright spot in 1949 was the trip to the 50^th anniversary of the Timken Bearing Company, a great reward for being a regular customer of Timken; Paul could take one guest - and he took me. We drove to Canton, Ohio, and participated in the varied activities. We also made a visit to a sign-painting company for whom Paul had worked in the early 1920s. The two brothers who ran the company were still there. We went to lunch and the three of them had a great time remembering their experiences together.
A big event in early 1950 was the program Queen for a Day on the Mutual Network - a Clausing lathe was given to a queen.  Continued