Now Hear This: Swim Call, Starboard Side!

"They say that in the Navy, the coffee's mighty fine; it looks like muddy water and tastes like turpentine..."

Right now, I'll bet you any amount up to a half-sawbuck with 12-to-7 odds that a recruit division in Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, Illinois, is marching around this moment to this very cadence. I never really knew how much coffee was part of Navy life until, well, tonight. Making the trasition from the noon to mightnight shift from the 7pm to 7am shift requires me staying up until about 4am this morning (its 0130 now), sleeping through most of tomorrow, and turning nocturnal. This also accounts for my absence from the blog-publishing world for the past several days.


So excuses aside, back to SLATER. The valve that caused me so much trouble, the valve that made me use up a month's worth of profanity in a measley few days, is apart, cleaned and back together. All but one part, the part that was missing when I took the valve out of the system: the packing gland nut. I have searched high and low for a replacement, but to no avail as of yet. By the way, if anyone knows where to find a 1-1/8" x 3/4" #14 thread packing gland nut that accomodates a 1/2" stem, let me know. Please.


I decided that, since I was going to be away from my valve parts for longer periods of time, it would behoove me to buy a containment for my valve parts. Looking through Home Depot, I decided that toolbags were too expensive, and generally excessive. Plastic bags were out too. So I settled on a small, 2 gallon metal pail, which I picked up for about $2.49. Once I got it home, though, I was looking at the pail and decided that it was too plain, too common. In other words, I was bored. Terribly bored. So, locating a Sharpie, I decided to label my pail, to make sure it was not misplaced, pilfered, or upturned and used for something else and my valve parts lost. When I was finished, I decided that, while not exactly up to Navy label standards, it would do the job just fine.


Well, now that I had MM3's Bucket of Valves and Other Assorted Goodies, I took the valve parts down below the forecastle, where the sandblasting booth is, and gave the valve what for. I mean, revenge is sweet and all, but for the sake of having a workable valve rather than over-worn hunks of metal, I took it easy and made the thing look good. The handwheel was missing when I took the valve out, and I quickly discovered why: the machine screw holding the handwheel in had long ago corroded to junk, and the head had sheared off, leaving the rest of the screw firmly embedded in the soft brass. And of course, a steel screw in brass is rather difficult to drill out -- the bit in the drill press simply bent away from the steel and into the soft brass. But finally, Erik Collin and I managed to get a hole in the stem, with the proper threads, and a suitable machine screw and washer was found to hold the handwheel onto the stem. The handwheel came from the stock of surplus handwheels we have down in after steering, and other than the missing gland nut, the valve is complete. It seems to work just fine, the packing is still in good enough condition. About all I didn't to was check for seat tightness, but the tools for doing that are nowhere to be found in the Machine Shop, so I'll just skip it.


But today, I spent very little time belowdecks in B-4. I was conscripted almost immediately upon arrival to fulfil the second half of what may be the wisest piece of advice in the entire Navy: "If it moves, salute it. If it doesn't, paint it." The #3 3"-50 gun tub does not rate a salute; as such, it was duly painted.

Now, to be fair, most of the work had been done previously by roller. All that was left was the cut-in work. But it's a gun tub. It's not a bathtub or jacuzzi. It's big. Swimming pool big.* And the sun was hot. Burn-the-back-of-your-neck-if-you're-not-wearing-sunscreen hot. (To answer your question, no, I wasn't wearing sunscreen. It wasn't until too late that I realized it was that hot.) So with a small can of the epoxy-based paint which costs about as much as good Scotch per volume, but should out-last me, I got to work. Round and round the gun tub I went, painting, sweating, drinking water as often as I could. Finally, I hit a snag. I had painted all I could, but there it a wrench that it attached to the gun tub that had to be removed so that I could paint behind it and paint the back of the wrench itself. Now, this wrench is big. Really big. I'm not exaggerating. The wrench is about as big as me, and weighs maybe 20 pounds less.

Now, just for reference, please understand that those depth charges in the upper right corner are about 20" in diameter. When I said the wrence was as big as me, I wasn't kidding. So with another set of hands, the wrench was removed and painted. Okay, you may be asking what the heck this large of a wrench could possibly be used for. Well, obviously a rather large nut. Specifically, the nut that holds the screw (propeller) on the shaft. I know this because I've asked and been told. But to remove all doubt, I looked on the back, and sure enough, engraved on the back, barely readable through the paint, are the words "PROPELLER NUT WRENCH". Nothing like going straight to the source. The screws on DEs were only about 6' in diameter, so if it was really necessary to do so, divers could go over the side and have the wrench lowered to them and remove the nut for the screw as necessary. Now, I don't have any information as to where, if anywhere, the spare screws were carried on board, but all I can say with confidence is the words stamped in the wrench itself.

Other than that, there is nothing new to report. The ship still floats, the visitors still come, and the work goes on. Maybe, as I often joke during my tours, if we get enough help and enough funding, we'll cast off lines one of these days and cruise down the Hudson under our own power to Lower Manhattan and give INTREPID what for.

* It was reported to me today that shortly after the war, the CO of NEW JERSEY had one of the twin or quad 40mm mounts removed from its tub, the access (the notch cut in the side for the gun crew to get in and out) closed by welding a steel plate across it, and filled with water to serve as a swimming pool. These 40mm gun tubs are more than a bit smaller than a 3"-50 gun tub.

Overnighting and Valve Success

In that there is little new to report, and in that it's taken me almost the entire week to get around to reporting, this will be short(er).

My second overnight onboard SLATER was less eventful (thankfully) than my first, mostly in that there were fewer folks and they were a good deal older. The same routine, move in, eat, tour, learn, sleep, move out, and play prevailed. Of course the weather was nowhere near as wet as last time, and the dawn was much more pleasing to the eye, although it was more cloudy than I would have hoped.

But that was Saturday night -- let me return to Saturday. Remember that valve from last weekend? The one that mocked me silently from the vise? The one that another volunteer was kind enough to return daily and oil? Well, when I put the wrench on it Saturday morning, you guessed it, not a dang thing happened. I still looked silly. So instead I went off and helped Gus and Carl and some others from the Deck Division move the items scavenged from Newport News down into the engineering spaces, inventoring and stowing them as appropriate. Of course getting that load of stuff down some small hatches proved to be difficult, but we were fortunate enough that the Duty Electrician got one of the blowers working, so there was a good deal of air circulating as we did our work.

After lunch, I returned to the machine shop, despite the mockery of the valve, to find that another volunteer had managed to loosen the bonnet! Success, at last! With little hesitation (I don't even remember now why I was going into the machine shop to begin with), I stripped the valve down and began the rough work of restoring it. It still doesn't look like that much, but give me time, it'll look good before I'm done with it.

Well, I'm afraid that's about it. However, I decided that since there was little to say, I'd add a little bit of eye candy at the end, just to make up for it. Perhaps I'll have more to do this weekend. If that's the case, there'll be plenty more to update you on next week.

The (Valve) Gods Must Be Crazy...

To begin with, Christmas came early for SLATER this year. Or, more properly, as far as some of us are concerned, it may as well have. One problem that people seem to think keeps coming up for the restoration of SLATER is the parts. I mean, where do they all come from? Surely, after 60 years, technology has advanced to the stage where many of these parts are unavailable, right? Well, not really. Many of the items I have noticed around SLATER are the same as those used aboard ships today. Case in point: Sharples Lube Oil Purifiers. If you want to look at one, you can sneak onto your local Navy base and try and get down to the engineroom of a nuclear powered ship or submarine. Due to inherent risks, I would recomend visiting the enginerooms aboard SLATER. Yup, almost part for part, the exact same piece of machinery used in the fleet today. Many of the interior communications equipment, the sound-powered phones, etc. is exactly the same as was used during the Second World War. So whenever the Navy is scrapping or decommissioning a ship, we manage to get aboard and take whatever we need. Hence Christmas in June. A group of dedicated volunteers went down to Newport News and brought back a plethora of whirlies and gizmos. Pistons for diesels. Tachometers. Pyrometers. Hoses for CO2 fire extinguishers. Boxes upon boxes of fuses. Breaker panels. Valve caps and valves and springs and injectors for the diesels. For a mechanic, it looked like the biggest toybox you could imagine.

Beyond that, there was other work to be done. Down in one of the forward spaces, there was a mountain of old life jackets, kapoks, that needed stacking and re-arranging. Also there were bags of sand for the sandblaster that had been moved forward to the forcastle and had to be lowered belowdecks. After that, the collection troughs that catch leakage past the main shafts before it collects in the bilges had to be drained. And by "collection troughs" I mean of course, kitty litter buckets. Yup, Tidy Cat, the (semi) official cat litter of US Navy museum ships in the greater Capital Region. For all the mechanic nerds out there (both of us), I went ahead and snapped a photo of shaft alley, which is right before the shaft penetrates the hull. The top of the picture, where the shaft goes into the bulkead? That's the shaft seal, and beyond that, the Hudson. Of course, the shaft seals were designed for a small amount of leakage, just to cool and lubricate the seal. And based on the small amount of water that had collected over the week, a small amout is what we got. But after that, it was back to my pet project: valves, valves, and more valves.

I decided this week that, come hell or high water, I was going to get one of those gate valves I've been putting off onto the work bench and make it look good. Not to spoil the ending, but I should have prepared myself with a water bottle and a kapok of my own. I decided to go back to work on the gate valved I've mentioned earlier, the one that had the problem with the bolts shearing. Well, on one side, the nuts and bolts came off, no problem. And since sheared bolts are useless, I decided that, since there was a 3' section of pipe adjacent to the valve, I'd take the valve and the section of pipe off with it. After a few minutes of persuasion, my plot worked, and I had the valve and pipe section out of the engineering spaces and where I could better work on it.

Let me just say that when a bolt and nut have fused together over 50 years, there's no getting them apart with a mere set of wrenches. To this end, I was introduced to several novel ways of removing nuts from bolts. The first came to me by a veteran who also went to dive school. With a large enough hammer and a good enough chisel, it's not too difficult to chisel through the nut and break it free that way. An interesting solution, for sure, and one I'll have to keep in mind should a similar problem face me in the fleet. The other solution to which I was introduced came from one of our welders. He simply put his welding torch to the stuck nut and just melted the damn thing off. I'm not a welder, but if I know where to find one in the future, it wouldn't be a bad way to go.

So, once I had the pipe free, I returned it to the system below, and began work on the valve. I spend hours on that valve. I put small wrenches on that valve. I put larger wrenches on that valve. I put a few excessively large wrenches (if such things exist) on that valve. I oiled the valve. I cursed the valve. I begged the valve. I threatened the valve. I cajoled the valve. I coaxed the valve. I did everything to that valve but take it apart. Not only that, it remains completely frozen. Won't move, won't budge, won't do anything but sit there and mock me. We even went so far as to put a propane torch on the valve, hoping to get some extra clearance, but it was no dice. The valve remains completely frozen, even now. But mark my words, that valve, before too long, will be disassembled, cleaned, and returned to the system. That or it will become the Hudson River's newest artificial reef.

Perhaps the Valve Gods demand a sacrifice? I wonder where I can find a white ram, a bronze dagger, and a dark-haired virgin at this time of the night...