Another interesting fact that I picked up from the piece, is that apparently Randall finished the 20 knives on July 7 1960 which I knew from Gaddis book, but NASA took delivery of the first Mercury capsule on July 23 1960 that was used for the 1st Redstone launch on Dec 19 1960. Wonder if the Randall knife was in that test flight?
Also that there were 20 of those knives made for the 20 capsules the McDonnell Aircraft made for NASA.
If you like the Astro and the early history, this article will fill in many missing facts.