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Show Cloth In c a Ship In Steel, Two or three months or less after the completion of the fairing the Bhip is probably in frame and looks like the skeleton of somo Brobdignagian monster mon-ster that has stranded on the bank of the river. The ribs havo been hoisted into position at right angles with the keel, and strung together by rib bandB, and already there are signs of the coming subdivision by decks and bulkheads of the hollow space within. You can still see through her, however; she is like, to mako yet another comparison, a great oblong wicker basket, the supple willows being represented by the network of steel. The next step is the clothing of ribs with plate. As they reach the yard the plates aro square and flat, but they are passed through rollers of various kinds, from which they issue in any shape desired-hollowed desired-hollowed like a spoon, curved lengthwise length-wise or breadthwise or diagonally, as the contour of the ship may call for. A steam or hydraulic plane smooths them down as though they were the softest of white wood; another machine trims tho edges as easily as a woman cqts silk wilh a pair of Bcissors. Then, suspended by iron chains, they are thrust between the jaws of a punching machine, which has resemblance to a sinister human face with a flat nose, a long upper lip and a email chin. The jaws close upon them and bilo out, ten at a time, the holes for the rivets by which they are to be fas-j fas-j tened to the frame. Scribner's. |