SHORTAGE OF STEEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1937, Page 11

SHORTAGE OF STEEL

NEW GOVERNMENT

BLOCK

CONSTRUCTION HELD UP.

Owing to delays in the delivery of building steel from England there has been some interference with the rate of progress in the construction of the foundations for the new eight-storey Government departmental block on the Stout Street-Maginnity Street site. The work is proceeding but with not so many men, and as a consequence it is not possible to maintain the same progress that has been made to date. The site was scooped out for .the foundations, which are the subject of a separate contract. These are to be built up to the level of the streets surrounding the site, but at the present time there are still some eight or nine feet to go before this level is reached. Work on the northern section of the foundations is practically at a standstill at the moment, most attention being concentrated on the southern side.

It is expected that tenders for the erection of the superstructure will be called before the end of the year. One of the matters to which attention is being given at the present time is that of welding the steel frame in place of doing the job by the pneumatic riveter. Tests are to be made; and subject to these proving satisfactory it appears likely that the welding method will be employed in the fabrication of the steel.

The use of one of the welding processes will obviate the noise inseparable from the pneumatic riveter, which has been the subject of pointed criticism lately and the cause for years of much annoyance to employees working anywhere in the vicinity. A number of riveters in action at the same time on the new Government block would very soon attract hostile notice from the officers of the Public Trust Office and the Judges of the Supreme Court across .the way. The racket that the riveters would set up, in fact, would' be such that it would probably seriously interfere with the conduct of litigation in-ithe Supreme Court.

It was pointed out to a "Post" reporter today that when the small steel plates required for riveting were taken into account there probably would be little difference between the cost of welding and riveting. There would certainly be a saving in metal. •

In addition to these two processes there is another which could be used in the fabrication of. the steel and that is the system of bolting, an American process, in which hard . steel-ribbed bolts are employed, but this, it was stated today, would be more costly.