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Practical Ideas for the Engineer Repairs German Liner--Refits Wiecked Ship--Joining Sectional Vessels --Oil Strainer--Electric Drive for Battleship--Adjustable Die Holder EBUILDING of the _ steamer CaLLao, one of the first of the ex-German interned steamers to arrive at the canal zone from Peru, has been completed, and the ship has been accepted by the marine superintendent, for the United States shipping board, according to the Panama Canal Record. Fiore -to her departure. from. the Balboa plant for New York, via the canal, this vessel underwent a success- fal trial trip during which her ma- chinery was operated - to maximum capacity. The Catrao, formerly known asthe Srerra Corpopa, of the North German Lloyd Steamship Co., was one of the four best equipped passenger vessels of that company, plying between Bremen and Buenos Aires. . The vessel is fitted with two. triple--- expansion, 3-cylinder, reciprocating en- , gines, driving. twin screws, power being furnished by four marine-type Scotch boilers at a working pressure of 200 pounds. The boilers are operated: with coal as fuel and are fitted with a forced draft system. The auxiliary machinery consists of the usual pumps, such as feed, bilge and ballast, fire, ash 'ejector, and sanitary; one evaporating and dis- tilling plant, two 60-kilowatt direct-cur- rent generator sets, one auxiliary con- denser, one ash hoist engine, one dis- infecting machine, and one main and one auxiliary steering engine, fitted with 'BARK GRATIA WRECKED OFF THE VIRGINIA CAPES AN control gear for ready manipulation. When this vessel was towed into Balboa by the dredge CuLesra, which had been dispatched to Peru for that purpose, she was in a dilapidated and crippled condition due to her long in- ternment and to destruction wrought by the German crew. Practically no work of repairs had been carried on after Germany's declaration of war, leaving the hull in poor corroded. Destruction Was Systematic 'The destruction of the main and auxiliary machinery was carried out in a. most systematic and thorough manner by. her former operators. Cylinders of the propelling engines were badly dam- aged by explosives; main valves, air- pump gear and other miscellaneous brasses and fittings were dismantled and thrown overboard. Important and. essen- tial castings of the auxiliary machinery suffered a similar fate by sledge, or could not be accounted for. Especial care was: taken to destroy or remove such parts as would render extensive design work necessary for their replace- ment. ; Water had been removed from the main boilers and fires burned in the fur- aces to. their full capacity in an en-~ deavor to destroy them. Complete de- struction was only prevented by the D COMPLETELY REFITTED AT NEW YORK 438 condition and badly presence of super-heating tubes with which the boilers' flues were fitted. Al| furnace fittings, however, were de- stroyed; riveted joints, boiler stays, and tubes damaged. As microscopic, physical, and chemicai tests on various speciments of boiler plate showed the steel still to be- of good quality and unaffected by the heat, the boilers were rebuilt, using new rivets, stays, and tubes. The furnace fittings were readily replaced by the canal foundry. Stack, uptake, and forced draft duct repairs proceeded simultaneously with those of the boilers. The complete equipment was then low- ered into the ship by the crane Ajax, As hydrostatic and steam tests of the completed boiler plant indicated excel- lent workmanship, no delay was experi- enced in placing the entire machinery de- partment under steam. Patches in the meantime had. been fitted to the main engine cylinders to re- place parts broken, missing or broken beyond repair. Cast iron liners were then inserted in the cylinders to take the pressure strains in the cylinder bar- rels; damaged ribs and flanges were built up by the electric welding process and machined so that when finished, the cylinders were substantially repaired and in serviceable condition. Through the designing of the missing parts, renewing parts from samples and repairing castings by electric and acety- lene welding processes, the vessel, taken in a wrecked condition, was repaired and turned over to the United States ship- ping board, equal in all respects to her original design. This work represented approximately 400 separate jobs, all com- pleted within six months after her ar- rival at the Balboa shops. Refits Wrecked Ship Last June a 3-mast steel bark sailed out of New York. Her owners had purchased her as a wreck, paying $30,000. When repaired they refused an offer of $300,000 for her. A few months ago the dismasted and battered hulk of what was once the 4-mast steel bark GRATIA was abandoned off the Virginia capes to the salvers. As_ she rolled, rail-deep, in the trough of the sea, the French-American Steamship Co. made an offer of something like $30,000 for her. The bid was accepted. The resurrection of the GRATIA was accomplished in the Brooklyn yard of the Tebo Yacht Basin Co. New steel a i a