Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1918-11-07
SHIPS ARE CUT
To MEASURE At
OREGON YARDS
icy MORNING JOURNAL SPECIAL LEASED wlpEl

Seattle, Wash, Nov. 6.-This is the
day of the tailormade ship and there
is in Seattle 9 great shop where ships
are cut to measure. This novel tailor
ing establishment is known to the
trade as Meacham Il Babcocks, and
it is the l9rgest of its kind in tho
United states built on fresh water.
Ships are constructed at Meachan
& Babcock $ very much the same as a
tailor constructs your pants, coat and
vest. They do things on a giant
scale and they cut with gargantuan
shears. Instead of sewing they nail
things together. And instead of one
CT two tailors'on a fitting" there are
thousands on the job.
The first foundation pile for Meach-
am & Babcock's ship tailor shop was
driven on o Salmon Bay site near
Ballard a Seattle suburb, on July d,
1911. The plant, filled in to "a depth
fthree or four feet with dredged
material, now covers an area of twen-
ty-three acres. From its six building
ways we are dropping ships Into the
water about every three weeks, just
like a glacier giving off chunks of
ice" as Meacham puts it.
He added that the ships turned out
table, even the furniture for the
crews quarters being made at the
plant.
Meacham & B;.bcock have contracts
for twelve Ferris type wooden steam
ers, four of which have been launched
The "Boulton' was the first of its
type launched by Seattle yards, taking
the water May IS last. Like all ship
yards, this plant IL a land of surprises,
of push and pull, lick-the-kaiser
spirit among the men, of striving
that knows no limit save the time
when the men hope the Stars and
Stripes will wave over Berlin. There
is the gatekeeper who was a florist in
real" life, and because of that he has
been allowed to install and take care
of dainty flower boxes around the gen.
eral offices. There, in the bowels OF
the ships, in the yard shops, are the
men who helped Meacham & Bah
cock build tunnels before they tackled
the war industry.
Building ship, after all. Meach-
am asserted, lis merely building a
floating house, and to build a ship one
needs only to gather the specialized
crew"
Among the maze of interesting
facts on general aspect Of shipbuild-
ing is one little known TO the laymar
that every ship is tailored hand
made, cut out by pattern and pieced
together just as the tailor cuts ones
suit. Every timber that goes onto the
ship frames is tailored" in a steam
box. Thousands of timbers are tall
ored otherwise. For instance, this
ward has a storage warehouse forty
feet wide and one block long, and all
the goods it stores can be put into q
woman's thimble.
1t is a vast drawing board. On IT.;
smooth surface Of board master work
men mark out by pencil the pattern of
special timbers. A giant, curved ruler
some sixty feet long, fastened to long
slender, movable iron braces, one end
of which can be tackled into the floor,
enables the workmen to lift the ruler
from the floor pencil lines and place
it on n board so that the exact pat
tern can be traced. This is the tailor
shop for timbers. The sawmill COM
| pletes the patternnfakors work, the
steam box adds the last touch, and the
garments pieces are ready for sew
ing"
At Meacham & Babcock's yard the
men take a pride in the performance
of their machines. They refuse to call
huge locomotive crane anything but
"galloping goose" or a stationary
derrick for handling lumber anything
but "stiffneck." Tiny gasoline cars
which do enormous work about the
wards are gas burros.'
OF two machines they are especially
proud. These are the invention of
George H. Merkley, superintendent of
the yard mill and are unique in all
shipyards. One is a circular cross
cut saw built in a mechanism which
operates on a track overhead and en-
ables the saw to cut a timber at any
desired angle. The other is peculiar
saw which will angle huge timbers
| used for ceiling and planking ships as
the timbers pass down one side, and
angle them as they return on the OPP
posite side. This machine, invented
| for wartime production, does its work
| in one-sixth the time required to do
! the same work in any other yard, ac-
cording to officers of the company. II
will handle forty-five planks per hour
as against eighty in nine hours under