REVIVAL OF WOODEN SHIPBUILDING AS A WAR INDUSTRY. 37 



necessary hydraulically to dredge these flats, pumping the "fill" into the area be- 

 tween the bulkheads, with the result shown in Plate 13, which is that of the com- 

 pleted yard, while Plate 14 shows a close view of the grading and keel blocks ready 

 for service only seven weeks after dredging began. 



New conditions in industry create new machinery with which to meet those con- 

 ditions. Shipbuilding is no exception. There are many new developments in wood- 

 working machinery to-day brought about by the call for "Ships, Ships, and Still 

 More Ships," principal among them the new types of bevel band saw, and that very 

 ingenious machine, the bevelling machine, wherewith frames can be shaped with their 

 varying bevels so closely as to require almost no dubbing. The illustrations show 

 some work characteristic of this machine, and among them you will note a set of 

 ships' knees, Plate 15, more perfectly faced on both sides in fifteen minutes than 

 could be done in the old days by one man and an adz in as many hours. These eleven 

 knees were loaded on the carriage, surfaced on one side, turned over, and surfaced 

 on the other side, the complete operation requiring only the time specified — 15 

 minutes. 



Plate 16 illustrates a vessel on which, I am advised, hand tools were not used in 

 beveUing the ceiling. Every piece was accurately bevelled on the bevelling machine. 

 Even the back of the ceiling at the turn of the bilge was bevelled by machine. 



Plate 17 illustrates the combined bevelling, reverse bevelling, and curving pos- 

 sibilities of this machine. Before photographing this timber a cut was made for a 

 few feet, the bevel starting at 1 1 degrees to the left, the angle continually changing 

 until finishing at 1 1 degrees to the right. 



The framing having once been cut, the present-day wooden shipyard constructs 

 a temporary "framing platform" at the head of each ways, upon which the frame 

 segments are assembled and fastened. The frame sections, complete from gunwhale 

 to gunwhale, are then slid down the keel and guiding bilge track to their final po- 

 sition. 



In this connection your attention is called to the rapid work which was per- 

 formed in the new Portland, Oregon, yard previously referred to. The accompany- 

 ing illustrations show the erection of ships' frames for a twelve-day period, Fig. 

 I, Plate 18, being taken November 2, 1917, and Fig. 2, Plate 18, on Novem- 

 ber 14, 1917. In the first the framing had only just begun on two ships, and at the 

 end of the twelfth day the entire square framing of five vessels had been completed. 

 During the following twelve days five other vessels had been also square framed on 

 . the keels between the vessels shown in the November 14th photograph. A gang on 

 12-inch ceiling has been handling the job at the rate of 24,000 feet a day. 



Some modifications in structure have been brought about under the pressure of 

 necessity. When power was introduced in the first wooden vessels little change in 

 design from the then prevailing sailing vessel M^as made. To quote Campbell Holmes' 

 "Practical Shipbuilding" : — 



"They had a flush upper deck, and, in the absence of a second deck, a tier of 



