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.