WELDS INSTEAD OF RIVETS

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 17, 19 July 1918, Page 7

WELDS INSTEAD OF RIVETS

NEW METHOD OF SHIP CONSTRUCTION. LONDON, 16th July. The first steel vessel with plates electrically welded instead of being riveted has been launched at an English port. It is estimated that welding saves 20 per cent, in time and labour. [The adoption of electric welding for the fastening of the plates of ships is the latest development in ship-building, and has only recently been investigated, although electric welding is now enormously used in many other branches of steel construction of all sizes from wire upwards. The pieces to be welded are heated by the passing of a very large current, which is sometimes applied so that an "arc" like that in the arc-lamp is formed, and in other cases is applied to do the heating by virtue of the resistance of the metal to the passage of the current. A few weeks ago the -American Federal Shipping Board ordered an exhaustive test of welding- for ship constuction, but it is not yet reported whether it has been carried out. The saving of labour and material is enormous. There are no holes to be punched or drilled, no rivets to be roads and driven ; much less marking out to be done, and the joints are much stronger. , A riveted joint is inevitably weaker than the plate in which it is made; an electrical weld may have the full strength of the plate. An American estimate of the advantages to be.gained is that about 10 per cent, in weight can be saved, and that a welded ship may cost as much as £10 per ton less than a riveted one.]