Steel Ships

Steel Ships

The blue prints go first to a unique room called a "mold loft." A typical loft is over 700 feet long and 200 feet wide-bigger than two football fields laid end to end. In this great room are made the "templates," which are flat wooden patterns of the steel plates and all the other parts of the hull. The large floor space is needed because some of the parts are very large. Working from the blue prints laid out on the floor, expert woodworkers cut out the templates to the actual size and shape of the steel plates. Each template is then marked with a curious jargon of symbols, which indicate the kind of steel to be used, the thickness of the plate, and where the parts is to go in assembling the ship.

The templates are sent to the fabricating shop, where the steel parts are cut out. The template is laid on a sheet of the specified metal and the steel part is cut to exactly the same shape. The template also shows where to make the rivet holes and whatever other fabrication is necessary.