The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1922-02-01
THE MANNING TIMES, Manning. s. G.

.lAlISS NAdlllilitS. -. ".
Meanwhile other lumber operators
had been watching the experiments.
Encouraged by the success Of the third
t'astabend venture another concern,
the Hammond Lumber Company, en-
barked in log:-rafting activities under
the name OF the Oregon Rafting Com
pany. Over the course Of several
years this company constructed thirty
giant RATS on the Columbia and tow
ed all but two Of the msuccessfully to
California ports.
just. now, however the Benson Lum-
ber Company, with John Fastabend,
the original pioneer, as its chief con,
structor, is the only concern actively
and extensively engaged in the enter
prise OF rafting logs down the Pacific.
AT this company's raft-building
plant on Wallace Slough John Fasta-
bend Is building giant RATS at the
rate Of five year. He has developed
a method Of raft construction that
has come to be accepted as Standard.
BY this method he has built fifty
! seven rafts for the Benson company.
| His latest, raft Number 81, sailed
from Wallace Slough September 4,
1921. Fourteen days later it was
| moored at the Benson lumber mill in
San Diego harbor. Of the fifty-seven
RATS, all but two have arrived at their
destination in San Diego entirely in
tact; and of the two exceptions only
parts were lost at sea. On Wallace
Slough h construction work on the r,fts
Is going forward all the time; their
| trips down the coast, however, are
timed so as to take advantage Of the
most favorable weather.
Ocean weather, Of course, is the big
consideration, just as it used to be the
insurmountable difficulty. The RATS
must be seaworthy; and that REQUIRE
ment demands care in design and
construction.
The RATS are built in cylindrical,
| llgar-shaped, wooden structure called
a Cradle" In general appearance the
"cradle" resembles the framework of
a huge wooden ship. Along it's bot
tom runs massive, ship-like keel,
and from this keel wooden ribs arise;
the ribs, however, are king pinned in
place, and hence removable. In leng-
tn, diameter and general contour the
'craddle" resembles the raft it is to
hold-800 to 835 feet long and 55 feet
wide. The "cradle" is, in fact, de-
mountable mold in which the raft is
| 10 De DullC ana SNAPPED.
A raft OF logs, enclosed within a
chain-linked "boom" such as is used in
rafting operations on fresh water, is
merely a single layer of logs, all
of1ating on the surface of the water
and only loosely held together. When
John Fastabend builds log raft to
send to sea, he makes a creation that
has not merely two dimensions, but
three-lengt hand breadth and depth.
! One of his RATS will float as deeply
in the water as an ocean-going ship;
1T will have draft of twenty-eight
feet and it will cmbody tremendous
bulk and weight. Such a structure as
that must have strength and rigidity.
1t must have backbone.
Johr Fastabend lays through the
| center of each raft backbone of
steel. Through the center of the "cra-
| die his workmen first stretch that
spinal column-a chain whose links
| are made of two-inch stock. Running
out at right angles from this back
| bone of chain lat twelve-foot intervals
are other chains and two-inch steel
cables. These are the cribs" they
are to encircle the, raft and hold it
| together. Backbone and ribs togeth-
err resemble the skeleton of some huge
fish; John Fastabend himself calls the
arrangement of chain and cable the
"herring-bone."
The logs, either in the form of pill
ing or of bigger pieces five feet
through at the butt and forty feet
long, go into the cradle after the
"herringbone" has been laid in place.
Tier. by tier of timber, the raft is built
up, burying the chains and cables
within its mass until it rises above
the ribs Of the "cradle" and to it's
own predetermined height of about
thirty-fve feet. The "dcck" is flat
tened like the deck Of ship. The
ends are brought to points and cover
cd by great iron caps that will consti-
tute the stem and stern. Next the
long ends Of the lateral chains and
cables are thrown around the entire
bulk at their twelve-foot intervals,
drawn taut with donkey engines and
made fast. The "hull Of the raft is
now comDlete and ready to po to soo