...Photo...Engine Lathe Work...McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company...1920...

...click photo for full size...

Thanks for posting another great picture. Better heads than mine will identify the engine lathes, I am sure. The shop in the photo is modern for the era, having motor drives on each engine lathe. It is a shop with good natural lighting aside from the electric lights under the rafters.

I may be off base with this, but the name McDougall may be one and the same as the McDougall who invented the "whaleback" steamers used on the Great Lakes in the 1890's-1920's. McDougall had the idea of building steamers with the for'd decks covered with plating much like the hull of a submarine. This was a design McDougall came up with for use on the Great Lakes. The idea was to build the for'd end of the ship like a submarine so it could ride through heavy seas. The last "whaleback" ship on the Lakes was the tanker "Meteor", which was in service into the 1960's.

McDougall was a captain and ship owner, aside from coming up with the whaleback concept. Whether he is one and the same as the McDougall whose name is on the shipyard in this photo is something I'll find out.

Joe you were right here is a link to a photo of one of the boats.

Harold

The frontmost one is not, but pretty sure those behding are American Tool Works lathes, High Duty, from the teens (note date on picture). Note the quad vee ways, and the backside of the headstock looks the same as my old 1912 ATW. The cover provides access to the high/low clutch adjustments. The shaft just above operates the clutches protrudes thru the front of the headstock, where the handle is located. The foreground lathe has drip oiler lubricated spindle bearings. I believe the ventilated cover beneath the headstock protects a rapid traverse motor, though I have never seen examples or photos of examples.


This headstock design notionally still supported lineshaft use, in which case a flat pulley is fit to the end of the power entry shaft, when the clutch lever is in mid-position both clutches are released so the pulley freewheels and a wooden brake shoe is applied to the just after the clutches. The next evolutions of this lathe design incorporated the motor into the base and fully enclosed the belt & pulleys- though ATW continued to sell conehead variations up into the early 1940's.

Joe Michaels said:

Thanks for posting another great picture. Better heads than mine will identify the engine lathes, I am sure. The shop in the photo is modern for the era, having motor drives on each engine lathe. It is a shop with good natural lighting aside from the electric lights under the rafters.

I may be off base with this, but the name McDougall may be one and the same as the McDougall who invented the "whaleback" steamers used on the Great Lakes in the 1890's-1920's. McDougall had the idea of building steamers with the for'd decks covered with plating much like the hull of a submarine. This was a design McDougall came up with for use on the Great Lakes. The idea was to build the for'd end of the ship like a submarine so it could ride through heavy seas. The last "whaleback" ship on the Lakes was the tanker "Meteor", which was in service into the 1960's.

McDougall was a captain and ship owner, aside from coming up with the whaleback concept. Whether he is one and the same as the McDougall whose name is on the shipyard in this photo is something I'll find out.

Click to expand...

The Meteor is Still in Superior (my hometown)as a museum ship at Barker's Island. They floated it in back when I was a little kid living there in the 1970s and filled in around it so it's high and dry. I've walked around it many times, but have never had a chance to go aboard.

Other ships in the area to check out if your in town would be the William A. Irvin in Duluth, and about 20 miles up the north shore in Two Harbors there is the Edna G. steam tug with it's original engine, still afloat but not underpower. I did the 5 dollar tour a few years ago and was the only one there so I got to climb down the ladders into the belly of the engine room.

There is also another ship awaiting it's fate in Superior with a neat history, but not open to the public... The American Victory bulk carrier. It started life as the navy oiler USS Neshanic back in WWII.

Paulz:

I am well familiar with the "Edna G" as I had the chance to ride here when she was in steam back in 1979. My friend was one of her last firemen, and he took me aboard one November night. The Edna G was ordered to have steam up by 10 PM and to meet the "Roger Blough" (US Steel Company) off the Two Harbors breakwater, to turn the Roger Blough and get her headed into the harbor. It was snowing when we left the ore DM & IR ore dock in Two Harbors. I got to fire some that night, and got to handle the main engine for a bit on the way back in. The Edna G's skipper and the skipper on the Roger Blough communicated by whistle signals, and the engineer on the Edna G maneuvered the main engine based on those same signals- no radio or engine room telegraph used. Coming back in, running light, the engineer knew I knew my way around steam engines and let me handle the main engine for a bit.


It is a shame the "Edna G" is not restored and put back in steam. She would be a good candidate for being a running vessel, much like the ones in Europe.

My other foray into steam power is in the Marine Museum at Canal Park in Duluth. That is the main engine from the old US Army Engineer Corps tug "Essayons". The Essayons was already owned by Zenith Dock and Dredge when her main engine was to be donated to the Marine Museum. The Museum needed a steel foundation and motor-driven turning gear designed for that engine. My buddy, the fireman on the Edna G, tendered my name for the job. I did the job pro bono (gratis). I was en route in January of 1978 to a powerplant job in Wyoming from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where I had been living. I stopped in Duluth, and my buddy and I walked out on the ice to the "Essayons". We entered her engine room and I got the dimensions and data I needed. I designed the foundation and motor drive while in a motel room in Wheatland, Wyoming. The US Army Engineer Corps paid for the fabrication of the foundation, the turning gear, and the erecting costs, with Zenith Dock and Dredge donating the engine.

I was on a number of the classic Great Lakes ore carriers in the late 70's when many still had triple expansion main engines. My buddy Russ, the fireman off the Edna G, could handle a coal scoop like no man I have ever seen. He made winging coal into a boiler look easy, and he had a sixth sense for it. He handled the scoop like a concert violinist handles the bow, and he taught me to fire coal. Russ has been dead a good few years, killed in a freak accident and way too young. Anytime I handle a coal scoop, even just to wing hard coal into our home heating boiler, I think of Russ and of the old ships and the Edna G.

Of late, I've done some engineering on the Steamer "Columbia". She is the last intact classic steam excursion vessel, built at Detroit in 1901. She has her original Scotch Marine Boilers and triple expansion main engine as well as all of the original steam driven auxiliaries. Her boilers are in surprisingly good condtion, based on ultrasonic thickness gauging and inspection followed by my calculations. Some repairs are need, which is inevitable. The plan is to return Columbia to steam service on the Hudson River, in NY State, so my dream of being around a working steam vessel again may yet happen.

Joe, that's pretty cool to have been involved in that.

I've been to the Corps of Engineers museum many times since the 1980s and have stared at that old steam engine (and that Kahlenberg diesel next to it) for who knows how many hours in total.

My dad did a season on the A.H. Ferbert right after US Steel closed down the steel plant in Morgan Park. His best friend retired from US Steel Great Lakes Fleet and went to work for American Steamship on the Belle River for a few more years. Quite the contrast between the Ferbert and the 1000 foot Belle river...... Even more for the Meteor to the 1000 footers of today.

Found this;

McDougall-Duluth Shipbuilding Company (1916-192) | Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth

Historical Note:
The McDougall-Duluth Shipyard was McDougall's second shipyard. It is named for Scotsman, inventor, patent holder, financier and shipbuilder, Capt. Alexander McDougall (1845-1923). It was established by Capt. Alexander McDougall and his son A. Miller McDougall in 1916 to construct a large fleet of freighters and steamers for lake and ocean trade for use in WWI for the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation. The yard at Riverside turned out 37 vessels and employed 3,500 men. A community, a Duluth neighborhood still called Riverside, accommodated the activity. There was a school, hotel, movie theater, stores, post office, bank, and blocks and blocks of houses. When the first vessel was launched, the Lake Helen, on July 4, 1918, more than 6,000 persons witnessed the ceremony.

McDougall sold the shipbuilding yard to Julius H. Barnes, who renamed it Barnes-Duluth Shipbuilding. Barnes-Duluth built WWII vessels. Barnes sold it to Walter Butler Shipbuilders in 1943 and it closed in 1945. The yard was located at the end of Spring Street, in the Riverside section of West Duluth: the site is now a marina.


Funny thing is, I was just riding the bike trails in Riverside a couple weeks ago. Went right past the marina.