On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 20:12:13 GMT, Dave Young
wrote:

snip
Thanks for the input Jack (sounds like you've got a bit of shipboard
experience)...


26 years in the Navy and only about two years or so actually on ships
at sea. And that was never more than 60 days at one stretch.

I had a pretty good deal in the Navy, I was in a shore duty rating
(Cryptologic Technician) that put small detachments on board
combatants after the ships were deployed. And we usually left as the
ship was going home. So we did not have to live through the yard
periods and pre-deployment workups. The down side was that, as
spooks, we were misunderstood and resented as outsiders. But we
occasionally did something good for somebody even if we couldn't talk
about it.

But once I became aware of lathes, it seemed like I would run into one
or two somewhere on board every ship. It made me crazy to look at
some of them. That 10" South Bend with the fitted drawers with two
chucks, a Jacobs collet chuck set, taper attachment, cutting tool
holders, and all the other basic attachments in the fitted drawers
used to really make me nuts.

Any ship that had a electric motor rebuilding shop had a lathe. I
made friends with an Chief Electrician's Mate on one of them that
spent a some of his off duty time making models of cannons on the
lathe in his shop. Spent a couple of evenings down there watching him
work and it was a pleasure. That was the cleanest lathe I ever saw in
the Navy. His guys used it too, but they did about 30 minutes of
cleaning for every 15 minutes of turning.

If I was going to look for machinery in a smaller ship, I would start
in the electric shop, then move to the engine room. But on some ships
they were in some real strange places, I know I missed seeing a bunch
of them because I was not a snipe.



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