Workers stand in the machine shop at the Otis Mill in Jay around 1940. Every manufacturing company needs to have a machine shop for maintaining the workings of the industry. The men who operate these shops are adept at making tools, replacement parts, forging metals, and keeping the manufacturing machines running.

This picture shows a metal lathe in the left foreground used to turn metal pieces into replacement parts. In the right rear is a smithy's forge used for heating metals to the point that they can be bent in the required shape. Included in the machine shop are welding machines, specialty tools, drills, grinders, vises and many smaller tools to do every type of maintenance work.