228 THE APPLICATION OF ELECTRIC WELDING 



The field man was perfectly sincere and perfectly conscientious in what he called making 

 a weld. All the metallurgical investigations, all the scientific research were concentrated on 

 what was in the weld that the man had made, and it was soon discovered that, if you take a 

 man, and especially a man who was not of the order of the laborer, a man of a higher order, 

 a man who is accustomed to use his brain and use it with rapidity, because the arc is a very 

 "rapid fire" proposition- — if you take a man of that type and start to train him and to inject 

 into his consciousness a sense of responsibility of the craftsman, immediate improved results 

 appear. 



Now, strange to say, the research men are going backward on that very proposition. 

 They are now making negative trials, and I had a request just before leaving my office to 

 make a weld which was bad — they are finding difficulty now in turning around and making a 

 bad weld in order to investigate why the weld is bad, and also in their endea,vor to find some 

 non-destructive method of testing the weld. 



I think that every one of the shipbuilders, every one of the naval architects, and every one 

 of the marine engineers may feel absolutely no hesitancy to-day in applying the process safely 

 to such a serious thing as a ship. I realize, as you all do, that a ship is a very serious matter, 

 involving a great deal of money to build and a great deal of money in the carriage of cargo 

 and carriage of life, and I would be the last man in the world to say to you gentlemen to-day, 

 and to say it freely and boldly, that the method is perfectly safe to use tO'-day, if you observe 

 one thing and treat that one thing conscientiously, and that is the craftsman you put on the job. 



If you have craftsmen who are determined in their own minds to be something more 

 than craftsmen, and you will go back to what your Society stands for, the art of shipbuilding, 

 and make them believe that shipbuilding is an art, and in using that electrode they are doing 

 nothing more or less than the painter in handling his brush, and that in the steel structure they 

 have nothing but what the sculptor has in his marble, and you gather around them a central 

 mind to guide that work and a number of men to aid himi, you will undoubtedly carve a mon- 

 ument in steel with the arc and with the electrode. 



Mr. Spencer Miller, Member of Council: — I would like to ask a question — how many 

 artisans or craftsmen would be required to electrically weld a ship to be launched as rapidly 

 as is now done with the ri vetted ship? 



Mr. H. Jasper Cox : — That would largely depend on the size of the ship. In this paper 

 you will find some data on the subject of welding, which you can apply against the speed of 

 rivetting per lineal foot of seam or joint. 



Mr. H. M. Hobart, Visitor: — I wish on behalf of the' Welding Research Sul>Committee 

 to express their hearty appreciation of the splendid co-operation of Lloyd's Register of Ship- 

 ping and the American Bureau of Shipping. Lloyd's Register of Shipping, which was repre- 

 sented on the committee by the author of this paper, helped us out at every point from their 

 immense fund of technical information. 



Prof. C. A. Adams, the chairman of the Welding Committee, was particularly desirous I 

 should describe the research work which has been done by the Welding Research Sub-Com- 

 mittee. We recognize that Britain made a splendid contribution to the advances which have 

 been made in the art of electric welding, especially in the art of electric welding as applied to 

 shipbuilding. But we feel that from the point to which they brought the art, our work during 



