TO SHIP CONSTRUCTION. 233 



welding grew up from the shop rather than in the draughting room. The value of repair 

 work done by arc welding was clearly demonstrated to the country in the case of the repairs 

 to the cylinders of the German ships, of which we have heard a great deal. At Norfolk we 

 are at the present time welding a great big cast-iron cylinder from the steamer Rondo, which 

 is probably a bigger job than any of the applications in connection with the German ships. 

 When we want to repair an article in the navy yard or in the shipyard we go to the welder 

 for advice and not to the draughting room. When we need new work, obviously we go to 

 the draughting room and not to the welder. The draughting room is waking up to the fact 

 that it is behind the times in arc welding. 



The drawings for new construction work are largely based on the experience of years and 

 on classification rules, specifications, and other forms of standard practice, but in welding we 

 still have all that ahead of us, and for that reason, also, we have nothing as yet to go by. 



The development of welding is gradually leading up to a new profession, that of Welding 

 Engineer. The designation "engineer" is much overworked, it is true, but we are at present 

 dependent on the mechanic and welder and are gradually educating the engineer, who will then 

 form a combination of practical men and theoretical men. When this is accomplished we 

 will have a great stimulus in the art of welding. 



The use of resistance welding referred to by Mr. Cox, is, I think, primarily of use for re- 

 peat production work rather than job work or in general construction work on the hull struc- 

 ture. The use of resistance welding, known generally as spot welding, ridge welding, or 

 line welding, is mainly a shop method and always will be unless the tests now under way by 

 Mr. Mason demonstrate the possibility of getting a large spot welder which can be used in the 

 field and supported by a crane for erecting very heavy plate work. In other words, the re- 

 sistance welder is a machine to which the work will be taken, vvrhile the portability of the arc 

 renders it a field device which can be readily taken to the work. 



The sheet metal articles used in shipyards or navy yards, while perhaps not often consid- 

 ered by naval architects, represent a tremendous output, and probably all of the plate that is 

 handled in ventilator work, and in many bulkheads and lighter structures in ships, can be 

 done by spot welding in one form or another, and that applies to black plate and a galvanized 

 plate from 5 to 7.5 pounds. That is particularly true with reference to battleships, and also, 

 to some extent, in merchant ships. 



At the Norfolk Navy Yard we recently installed a butt welder of 1 ^ inch diameter ca- 

 pacity. I believe there was a machine there some years ago of similar type, but the records 

 were lost, and we are considering this as a new machine. In the few months it has been in 

 use it has more than paid for itself. We can weld rings from 1 to l>^-inch diameter wire and 

 such things as angle collars and angle rings for ventilators, within the capacity of the ma- 

 chine. One thing pertaining indirectly to the ship construction is the welding of high-speed 

 tips on nickel steel shanks and we use practically no other kind of tools in our shops. All of 

 the welding is done on this machine. 



We also salvage all broken drills, which is of interest to shipbuilders, and this machine 

 recently welded a broken 2.5-inch high-speed drill. After the weld was made the drill was 

 driven until the drill-press stalled, showing the drill was quite strong enough. 



Another form of the application of electricity in shipbuilding not mentioned by Mr. Cox 

 is the electric heating of rivets, and, while it is not within the scope of this paper, that form- of 

 energy in obtaining heat for rivets is being extensively used. One form of machine heats the 



