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16 SECTIONAL WORK IN SHIP- BUILDING. On May 3 Mr. J. L. Twaddell, who is well known in the ship building world as manager of Palmer's ship yard at Jarrow-on-Tyne, read a pa- per at a meeting of the North-East Coast' Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders on "Sectional Work in Ship Construction." In almost' every branch of industrial engineering, and indeed- in' the manufacture of almost every commodity during the last 20 'or 30 years, great advancement had been made, he said, both in output' and quality, while, at the same time, cost of production had been reduced, notwithstanding the fact that the po- sition of the workman had greatly improved in the matter of the num- ber of hours worked per day as also in the wages he work, and the sanitary condition of the workshop. No doubt this state of affairs, so far as the artisan was con- cerned, would be claimed in some quarters as being brought about by -the better organization of the men into trades unions. However, the bet- terment of the artisan running paral- lel to increased production called for further explanation, and this, unques- tionably, was to be found in improved facilities and better organized control - on the part of the managers of our large industrial concerns, one of the chief features of which was the sub- dividing of the work to be done into a number of sections, thus resulting in the workmen specializing in one branch of work only. For example, in the early days of mechanical engi- neering, following the" advent of steam, with the multitude of machines for all purposes which it brought in its train, all the work of manufacture was for a long time performed by millwrights alone, but by a gradual process of evolution this had all been changed, and whereas formerly a me- chanic not only manipulated his piece of work in the lathe or other ma- chine, but completed what fitting it required at the vise bench and even followed it to the engine or machine of which it formed a part and erect- ed it in position, in the larger shops, at any rate, all machining was done by a set of men who did nothing else, and similarly all fitting and erecting by other sets of men, so that greater expertness had been gained by the men on the particular work in which they had specialized. A somewhat analogous case was that of the ship- wright who, in the good old days of the wooden walls, was, with the ex- ception of the blacksmith and _ per- haps the painter, the only skilled received for his: TAE Marine REVIEW workman employed in the construc- tion of a ship. The substitution of iron for wood in the main structure very soon changed all this; and with the advent of iron for ship building purposes came the machinery neces- sary for its manipulation, which re- sulted in the employment of quite a number of separate trades, the prin- cipal of which was that of the iron ship builder, who, in the early days of his craft, took a. somewhat. similar position with regard to ship building to that of the millwright in relation to engineering, so' that she not only marked off the plates or bars, but punched and sheared them at. the ma- chine, fitted them in the ship, and even riveted them, afterwards calking the seams or butts as required. In other words, the iron ship builder of the early days was drawn from the ranks of the boilermakers, where each man was capable of doing the work of plating, riveting, and calking, and these men brought this practice with them into the work of iron ship build- ing. The rapid development of this industry, however, soon resulted in this work being to a large extent subdivided; thus lads were apprenticed as plater$ only, or as riveters or calk-- ers, so that out of one skilled trade there sprang three distinct branches, and this division had obtained in the iron department of the ship yard for "many years. Circumstances were, how- ever, rapidly undergoing a change which would inevitably call: for a further subdivision, if this country was to maintain its prestige as the leading ship building nation of the world; for it could not be denied that in recent years the development of this important industry in foreign countries had begun to be felt .in British yards. Here, again, altered conditions and improved facilities pro- vided the necessity for readjusting of the modus operandi' in manipulating the material forming the structure, just as similar influences. brought about changes in other trades, not only without detriment to the artisan, but, on the contrary, to the improve- ment of his position. The expensive and tedious process of fairing and keeping fair the frames and beams until sufficiently secured by the plating, by means of wood ribbands, was being superseded in many yards by the more direct method of fairing by the plating itself. Thus tank side plating was marked from templates prepared from __ scrieve boards, so that when erected in posi- tion they brought the ends of tank floors fair. In many yards molds were prepared in the mold loft for 'instead of ribbands. deck stringers, as also for a strake of deck. plating alongside casings and hatches, from which the plates were marked and punched, it might be, be- fore the vessel was in frame, so that these plates served to fair the deck Similarly a strake of side plating was used to fair the frames in some yards by the early preparation .of proper molds, and even the bottom shell plating was be- ing punched and placed in position before the floors were erected. This method necessitated terms being made with the plater for marking and punching alone, allowing, of course, for molds being supplied him, so that to this extent sectional work had al- ready in some measure been adopted. With the increasing dimensions of . ships, and the larger sizes of plates and bars used in their construction, had come the necessity for dealing with them mechanically instead of manually; hence the introduction of power-driven cranes both on_ the ground in the building yard and over the building berths. It followed as a natural sequence that firms with suf- ficient enterprise to expend consider- able capital on these appliances looked for a reasonable return on their ex- penditure, and in order to obtain this the time appeared to be approaching when the old order must give way to the new, and the custom which pre- vailed in ship yards where no such appliances were provided, as in the case of many ship yards, both on the Clyde and the North-East Coast, the platers' piece-work price, which in- cluded the erecting of the material in position in the structure, needed to be re-adjusted, at any rate, in those yards where special facilities were provided which eliminated the neces- sity for a full squad of laborers or helpers, as they were called, dragging the, piece of material by main force into position. In fact, there seemed no real'reason, at any rate in yards under the new conditions, for the plater, as a member of the squad, fol- lowing the material to the ship at all, as it could be placed in its exact po- sition by mechanical means, and it was a question whether the platers' work ought not to finish after the punching, shearing and rolling was done, as no special skill was required for the operation of placing in posi- tion; certainly no more than was re- quired in the case of the main frames or deck beams, which it had never been the practice of the platers who prepared them to follow to the ship and secure in position, for even in the case of plates that was all that was done, as the platers did not complete