The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1912-07-23
MENDING THE MAMMOTH
PANAMA MACHINERY
How Repairs Are Made and Great Tools Built-Inven-
IONS tor Canal Work-Cutting Iron With Acetv-
lene Gas-How to Beat a Patentee- Sidelights On
Great Ditch.
Copyright, 1912, by Frank G.. Car
penter.)

the Canal Zone. 1t is not a dead
mass Of silent machinery, but a great,
noisy, Whiriing combination, drilling,
digging blasting a gorge through
The & mountain chain upon
earth. 1t includes mighty dredges
which are conQuering the ocean, and
a myriad OF trains which are moving
material faster thar the widest Gre
atoms OF the dreams Of Aladdin.
Much Of this exposition has already
been pictured, but the parts | shall
show you TO-DAY are outside the great
dltch. They are not engaged in the
work itself, but in keeping the mighty
forces IN good order. | refer to the
repair shops Of the iSthmuS. There I
are tens Of acres of them, rooted with
galvanized iron and Inhabited by
thousands of mechanics, h are ere
ating new machinery and repairing
and Strengthening that now in use.
There are vast warehouses filed with
all kinds of supplies from bits Of steel
as tine as d needle to the mighty
arms which lift the steam Shovels,
from the finest silk thread to cables
Hs thick as your leg and from the
hard bits Of wood used in the pat
terms to the lOg-like planks for re-
pairing the LidgerWOod cars.
Right here at Gorgnoa are more
than tWenty-one acres of machinery
engaged in making repairs, and at
Empire, only about six miles away, 1
are other great shops where steam
shovelS are erected, locomotives
mended and broken heavy machinery
of all kinds made new. There are
smaller repair shops at Pedro Miguel
and Gatun, devoted to the conStruc-
ton equipment Of the locks nearby,
and, at Cristobal and Balboa, still
others devoted to keeping the big
dredges in order. The variety of
works is beyond conception, but you
Can learn something of it by the story
OF hat / saw today.
Uncle Sans Machine Shops at Cor
gOna.
Take, for instance, Gorgona. This
Is the repairing establishment
Uncle Sam has on the sthmus. 1t
was begun by the French. and when
I was here in 1905 it had just been
cut out Of the jungle. When we
bought the canal the engineers did
not know Of its existence. 1t was
hidden in a dense vegetation and they
We're surprised when they Oun a
building covering a half dozen~acres
containing a complete equipment of
machine tools, including stationary
engines and over 100 carloads of
foundry and machine shop supplies.
The works were at once renovated
and put to repairing the French ma
chinery for use on the canal. At the
time ! first saw them, they had al
ready repaired a thousand dump cars,
thirty or forty locomotives and a
large number of cranes, e~xcavators
and drills. Among these was an
old French excavator which was put
into service in the Culebra cut, and
used nearly eighteen months, until
replaced by a steam shovel.
Shortly after that time the gov
decided to make this its
chief shop, and since then it has been
doing the most of the repairs with
the exception of that on the steam
shovels and some Of that on the
dredges. During this trip l saw
men at work on the heaviest Of the
canal equipment, handling the masses
OF iron and steel which weigh many
tons and can only be lifted by steam
cranes. | saw them also working
on clocks, watches, adding machines.
typewriters and water gauges and
doing the finest of jewelry repairing
under the same roof. In addition TO
hxing the old tools of the canal they
were making new ones, and were also
adding to the strength of the ma
chinery just sent down from the
states.
I~nventing New Machinery.
| went through the works with the
superintendent, Mr.. A. l.. robinson,
who has under him something like
5000 mechanics. He talked with me
AS to the strengthening OF thN ma
chimes. Said he:
4NttIly every bdll VI t'itSt Us
tools sent to the iSthmuS has had &c
be remade or strengthened. as the
most of them are not strong enough
TO do the heavy work here. Take
for instance, the SpreaderS which
smooth out the dumps, each doine
the work of hundreds of men. we
ordered the strongest. but those
which came were not sufficiently
strong for the work. We then brough,
down the inventors, and they stayed
for two months on the lSthmuS
studying the problem and trying tC
make new machines. One of these
men designed a spreader, which look
ed ali right upon paper, and we or
dered eight. When they came, we
found that they were still too weak
and we had to bring them into the
shops and strengthen most Of the
parts"
"As a result of this kind of work,