[TheForge] Welding Liberty Ships

[Ron Childers]

The welders were paid by the number of rods they burned. When the ships
broke apart the inspectors found that the rods were just thrown into the
keel and welded over. This practice consumed large quantities of rods, but
resulted in very poor welds.

Ron C

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of David E. Smucker
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 8:19 PM
To: Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Welding advice -- Now Heavy Welds

Chuck / James -- this all make sense -- the use of riveted structures for 
ships -- As almost all heavy industrial structural steel was still using 
riveted design well into the 1950's.  (I know that based on older mill 
building in the company I worked for being riveted construction.)  In fact 
if I remember this correctly some of the first welded ship construction was 
the "Liberty" Ships built during WWII and a number of these ended up with 
stress cracking failures while at sea.