The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1918-08-23
THE EAGLE BOATS

Scarf Hendee, in the September
Mechanics Magazine has the follow
ing to say about the construction of
Uncle Sans eagle boats:
When one has seen warships TAX
ing form like Cucumbers in a hot
house, he no longer wonders whether
or not Americas industrial prepared
ness has been estimated conservative.
ly.
There is one place in the world
where such 4 dramatic spectacle is
being enacted, 1t is within an enor-
nous glass soIarium on the bank of the
River Rouge at Detroit where the
navy's new Eagle" boats are being
built.
When Henry Ford early this year
agreed to build Eagle boats at De
troit, the plans and specifications
were yet to be prepared by the navy
department, a model remained to be
built and tested the present shipyard
at the River Rouge was a dream,
methods Of high speed production
we're unformuated, important machin,
cry demanded inventors, and special
tools awaited designers.
In normal times a capable contract
ior might have spent a year in erecting
the assembly plant. a steel and glass
istructure LOO it. long, $50 #. wide,
and about 80 it. high, but not only
was in finished in II weeks, but fin
ished in every detail
From start to finish the eagle boat
is precedent. 1t is being built en-
tirely of sheet steel No one ever
heard of such thing before There
is not rolled beam from stem to
stern, or keel to bridge Every pars
is fashioned from .flat-ata.a,'- nIa 20.
| Rrllyhaad asa-~~--~ -~00A p'"'O'
', ...s...@ .lnges, deck beams, chan
Inels, and other structural members
are bent into shape some, like the
aforementioned. manually, others cold
pressed BY powerful machines.
In an extensive '1umberyard" are
Iinnumerable stacks of thin steel
plates Except for the shape Of some
of them, they look as if they were
composed of trimmed and orderly ar,
ranged layers of rust-coIored sole
Heather And when one OF the plates
is lifted and swung through the air
Iby a crane or dragged from a stack
| by a small army of husky laborers,
it bends and sways in leatherish fash
ion, and the similarity is all the more
striking.
What then is being done? Sheets
of steel are entering at one end of a
long building and eagle bdats are
being launched at the other end! 81.
Each eagle boat is built on a long
flat car, supported on II standard
trucks and stationed on one of the
shipways The cars are 1877 it. over
all, and suggest to one tremendous
mack centipedes. On each of the
three shipway tracks there is room
for seven of these cars Thus there
is place in the plant for the simulta-
neous assembling of 81 ships.
1 From the laying of the keel to the
mounting of the rudder and propeller,
a boat progressively occupies seven
different positions along its way. That
means that the assembling is divided
into seven different crews of work
men, When the drsr operation is
completed, the car bearing the en-
bryO boat is moved to the second p0-
sition, and a new car is brought into
the vacant berth ready for the keel
OF another vessel to be laid. Before
boat can be transferred from the
first to the second position, every
other boat along the ways must ad-
vance one station. This means that
each Of the seven operations on sew
en- different boats must be completed
on time to the minute by seven dis
tinct crews Of workmen When the
first crew is ready to lay another
keel, the last crew must be ready to
launch a boat Not an inch of space
has been provided for flembiItty in
the event of unavoidable delays
No room has been left for failure!
The kaiser is not as foolish as he
looks He racpntlv tOOJz 4G00a en-