Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-06-16
UNCLE SANS GREAT JUNK
BUSINESS is GROWING
Daily Letter by Frederic j. Haskin.

WASHINGTON, June 13-Amer-
ica's real work in the naval disarm-
ament program is being started in
earnest. The conference itself is
history and the men who reduced
to writing the agreements are en-
gagged in other affairs. The actual
scrapping of the ships of war, is just
beginning. 1t is a job which is max
ing the United States the seat of the
biggest junk industry the world
yer has known.
Dismantling a battleship is a task
second only to building one. A bat
'tleship is designed to withstand de-
struction. In war it is it's function
to endure the pounding of the heav-
lest shells which the ingenuity of
man has invented, to say nothing of
the pounding of the seas. And now,
under the disarmament treaties, a
whole fleet is to be destroyed.
Practically all of the work is to be
done in private yards of junk men
or shipbuilders. A Philadelphia
firm made the government a propo-
sal to take over the entiro neer scrap
ped by the treaty, but as a matter
VI PdbAAN POAANg IL was utCAutu HUI
to give the entire job to one COM
pany. However this company has
obtained the job of scrapping sew
eral battleships and a number of
smaller vessels. Among the import
ant warships to be scrapped at Phil
adelphia r the battleships Missou-
ri. Wisconsin and Maine, the cruiser
Columbia, the cruiser Raleigh,
NrrhfaL Wr-.. .v~s.L l--s1
Manila Bay and the Monitor Mon
terey. The junk company's yard is
on the waterfront and il now is
dredging a channel deep enough to
receive these great ships.
The most useful implement in the
destruction of an armorclad battle
ship is the oxy-acetylene torch.
This is a device which shoots a flame
of extremely high temperature into
a mass of steel and cuts it as a knife
cuts bread. These torches are used
in cutting the huge armor plates
into commercial shapes and sizes.
The pneumatic drill and the chisel
are used in the Remembering of
lighter parts, and a ~ponderous ham,
mer-something between a trip
hammer and a pile-driver is used
to crush and break up large blocks
of metal into smaller, more worka-
BILE chunks.
Material for Automobiles
Battleships are made of the best
quality Of material and therefore
have a large value as junk. Armor
plate is made of the finest nickel
steel. This cut into billets and sold
TO automobile manufacturers who
remake the material into engines,
springs and other parts requiring
great strength. The heavy machin-
cry used in operating gun terrets is
sold to manufacturers of farming
implements or TO iron foundries.
There is much copper, brass, gun
metal, bronze. lead. zinc, and man.
ganese on a ~battleship. These are
al. used in ship-building as well as
in other lines of manufacturing.
When taken from the battleship
they are sorted and sold to dealers
or direct TO manufacturers.
All the material is as carefully
sorted and graded as new metal. II
is stacked in neat piles and CLASH
fed by shapes and sizes. Experience
has taught the junk men the best
forms into which TO CONVEX their
materials to attract buyers and the
big modern junk yard looks more
like a department store than the
ordinary backyard junk piles of
small dealers. To make the required
sizes crocodile shears are used.
These have jaws which cut with
a ten-ton pressure. Also. tangled
fragments of lighter material are
pressed into blocks in a sort of
mould on which an enormous pres
sure is eXerted.
While great fighting ships of the
navy will be reduced absolutely to
scrap some Of the lesser craft will
be dismantled only so far as fighting
equipment is concerned. The hulls
will be used for merchant ships, new
interior arrangements being effected
to make them suitable for the car
rying Of cargo. Three old destroy
ers. the TruXton. the Worden and
the Whipple. which We're retired
some time ago, have been rebuilt as
merchant ships and now ply I'm the
fruit trade between the United
States and tropical America. Many
of the destroyers are fast, oii-burn-
ing ships and are easily susceptible
Of conversion into passenger or car
go ships
A modern battleship costs $so.-