I would be very interested in seeing the specs.
We are trying to document where various items of war materiel for Canada's war transportation industry were manufactured and how.
Presumably the plate was received from perhaps Dofasco and/or Stelco in Hamilton (about 30 miles from Galt and shipped from Hamilton to Galt. M Foundry or Varity Plow in Brantford might also have been involved.
At Galt, again presumably, the plate was sheared or flame cut to a pattern and holes were punched, as needed.
The Niagara area is at the western end of Lake Ontario and close by the Welland Canal which was used to ship many automotive parts and assemblies.
In general, Ford CMPs were assembled in Windsor Ontario and GM CMPs in Oshawa Ontario. Many of the single parts were manufactured in Niagara and shiped to Oshawa and Windsor for final assembly.
CMP owners will see the names of many Niagara factories on various parts of their CMPs.
These could be Hayes Steel. Now Hayes Dana but during the war years Hayes Steel. They did forging and cutting. During the war they had some quite heavy (and Noisy) Drop Hammers and many smaller ones which ran 3 shifts and seven days. No one every complained about the noise and if they did it would be pointed out that it was their patriotic duty to live with it. and so we did. By any standard it was a large factory but with the recent deindustrialization of the Niagara area it is gone.
The GM Plant in Niagara was McKinnon Industries, after about 1935 a GM subsidiary. At the same time in Oshawa the factory that was originally McLaughlin Buick which became GM of Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaughlin_automobile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_McLaughlin
Other well known war industries were
English Electric: electric propulsion engines
John Inglis: Naval Guns and Turbines
Massey Ferguson: Mosquito wings and farm machinery including the first self propelled combine.
Lightning Fastener: Zippers in various forms
Thompson Products: Many of their parts were common to all companies and were stamped Ford, GM or Cyrco.
Recall the Hay Fork used by the English farmer during the capture of Rudolph Hess was manufactured in Niagara.
Later I will pass on a description of the various items produced by McKinnons such as 19 set vibrators, axle parts for CMP's, fuses etc.