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USS Midway Aircraft Carrier – Machine Shop-photo link

P

Perk

Cast Iron
Joined
May 19, 2004
Location
Nebraska
I toured the USS Midway (Aircraft Carrier Museum docked in San Diego) last week and must say I was very impressed. Even though it’s not as big as the Nimitz Class Carriers this is one huge ship. The Machine Shop (see attached link) wasn’t as big is I thought it would be but was well equipped.

I believe some of the support ships that sail with the fleet must have greater capabilities from a repair/machine shop standpoint. Anyone know for sure? Anyone have experience cutting chips at sea? Were the machines bolted to a reinforced floor that remained ridged in rolling seas?



http://www.midwaysailor.com/clintgriffin/machineshop.html

http://www.midway.org/
 
The Model X L&S is from the fifties - you can tell by the hard vee outer ways.:D

This is a far larger shop than I ever saw on Saratoga CVA 60 circa 1961, but the brown shoe (aviation) navy was discouraged from looking around much in black shoe areas.

John Oder
 
Pretty much everything is bolted down on a military vessel. It is quite the experience to board one of those babies. I was an Avionics Tech., but avoided the old hays gray and underway. My oldest brother is the last of us still in the Navy, and he's done quite well, made Caption and ran Carrier Air Wing 1 up until a few weeks ago. I am so impressed by todays sailors. They are so professional and polite. Great group of men and women keeping the bad guys at bay.

These sailors were making chips on the Enterprise on her cruise last year.
 

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The bigger Lodge & Shipley lathe is a gap bed model. John, I'm suprise you miss that one?:D

The other two look just like my L & S I now own thanks to John O., but with out the gap bed design. Much nicer though!:o

Ken S.
 
Perk said:
Anyone have experience cutting chips at sea? Were the machines bolted to a reinforced floor that remained ridged in rolling seas?
Click to expand...


I was an Asst. Rig Mechanic aboard this unit back in the late '70s.

http://www.deepwater.com/fw/main/Sedco-702-92C17.html?LayoutID=17

We had a big honkin' Standard Modern lathe with just about any accessory you could imagine. It was firmly fastened to the deck in the machine shop! Rig movement had no effect on machining operations.

By the looks of the spec sheet, it's a very different rig today.


Rex
 
A machinist I worked with I the 1970s joined the peacetime navy in the 30s. His hitch was almost up when he got hurt in the Pearl Harbor raid and after recovering got to sail around the Pacific for the entire war. He said that the lathes were mounted in some sort of sling to keep from warping when the floor plates twisted. He never described the sling and the last time I saw him, I was not sure he even recognized me, so there probably would be no point in asking now. That's all I have to offer on the subject.

Bill
 
Was in Mobile, AL last summer and toured the USS Alabama---the Navy knows how to get the most from a small space. I really enjoyed looking at their machine shop on board. I should get them to design my garage shop.
 
I think it would have non-skid painted on it, but that stuff comes of in chunks. I was on the Ike a few weeks ago and that stuff was painted on all the decks. They hadn't finished re-painting it on the flight deck yet, so it was interesting to see the tail hook scars. That stuff wears the tops of the Plain Captains boots off before the soles. Turns 18 year old kids into men.
 
Perk said:
I believe some of the support ships that sail with the fleet must have greater capabilities from a repair/machine shop standpoint. Anyone know for sure? Anyone have experience cutting chips at sea? Were the machines bolted to a reinforced floor that remained ridged in rolling seas?



http://www.midwaysailor.com/clintgriffin/machineshop.html

http://www.midway.org/
Click to expand...

Most ships have the minimum necc to do repairs while underway, and a fleet will typically have access to floating drydock and better equipped vessels for bigger jobs. Major repairs were handled shoreside.....but take that with a grain of salt, I was a peace-time sailor. I'd be willing to bet a whole lot of cash that wartime repairs get accomplished way outside the machine-tool-builders' intended envelope. Nothing motivates like the survival instinct.:D
 
DocsMachine said:
Here's a photo of a lathe aboard a decommissioned Russian Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine.

Anybody remember a time when getting detailed, high-resolution photos of the inside of a Russian boomer like that, would have involved spies and smuggling and might have gotten somebody killed?

Now we pay a few rubles, take a public tour, and upload the pix to the internet. :D

Doc.
Click to expand...

That is crazy. A lathe on a frickin sub....
 
The main thing of concern in machine shops on board ship is that everything has to have a way of tying down to keep from flying around in rough seas.

Everything has to be kept put up when not in use and all drawers and cabinet doors have latches on them to keep them from opening. Nothing thrown about loose in the drawers to be rolling and banging around, the pieces of stock and material all have to be tied down real good, most of the ships movement is rolling side to side and our material racks were designed for that sideways movement.

I believe the aircraft carriers don't have as much of a problem rolling as we did on the smaller destroyer style ships.

You can pretty much rest assure that every piece of equipment on board a ship is bolted to something....
 
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