USS Iowa machine shop - photos

[Jon]

Machine shop on the USS Iowa.

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Previously:

Mobile machine shop - photos and video
Thomas Edison's machine shop - photos
Amish belt-driven machine shop - photo
Pelton wheel-powered machine shop - video
Machine shop powered by Pelton water wheel
1873 water-powered machine shop Knight Foundry
Steam-powered machine shop

[marksbug]

and sadly these go down with the ship. even when the ships are sunk for reef building. so sad...makes you want to puke up your guts. many years back(1997) one of my old bosses tried to give me a good old horizontal mill, I wish I had taken it.

[rdarrylb]

The milling machine in the second to last picture is interesting. I've never seen one like that. Does anyone know the brand? Thanks!

[marksbug]

iy looks like it does double duty as a horizontal mill too.probably what it was originally made for than attachment for vertical milling.

[rdarrylb]

That crossed my mind, as the frame looks more like a horizontal mill. Still, cool looking mill, and I wouldn't say no to it.

[Paul Jones]

A friend that makes some of the largest water pumps ( more than 200,000 gallon per minute) bought at scrape iron prices plus shipping one of the large swing lathes for manufacturing the 16 inch Iowa class guns. He added a riser to the headstock and tailback. It is rarely used in the shop anymore now the CNC tools can swing 72 inches. Nonetheless the old lathe can swing 92 inches and is occasionally used. If he hadn't bought the lathe it would have been melted down for scrape.

[marksbug]

Ive even seen cnc machines at the scrap yard. so sad.

[Toolmaker51]

The milling machine in the second to last picture is interesting. I've never seen one like that. Does anyone know the brand? Thanks!

That's my idea of a service shop, fully capable as a job shop too.
To rdarrylb, the mill is Kearney & Trecker, of near certainty, by placement of the feed selector. I am baffled regarding the universal head, those contours are unlike mine, [bald, not pointed or painted, lol]. Not likely this was used horizontally, no parking attachment. But well suited to low headroom, compared to a conventional vertical knee mill.
All the brands depicted are my lyrics for singing about best American machine tools. As a toolroom guy, choices get some tuning. IE, radial Morris drill I'd seen in many Naval environments, my choice is American Hole Wizard. The Monarch lathes are incredible, and Sidney engine lathes came from same locale, but no lathe beats American Pacemaker. Cleereman round column drill = A1. Normally, heavy shops take box columns, but they aren't suited to low headroom either.
And all you shop floor planners, note overhead rail trolley. That's how heavy work-pieces are moved where a forklift won't fit! Before a move, they contact navigation bridge that a straight course is planned, at least duration of such. A big stuffing box or pump case swinging during heel to port?

[rdarrylb]

Thank you, Toolmaker51 ! I used a Kearney & Trecker rotary head mill many years ago when I was a mold maker apprentice. Sadly the market went bad foor our company and I was laid off. Never did get back into that line of work. Saw a Kearney & Trecker rotary head mill at the US Air Force Museum shop in Dayton on a visit 10 years ago. I still find them fascinating.

[marksbug]

I used to make molds too!! stamping press molds and plastic injection molds. thats where I learned cnc programing& operation.and also that the engineers making the prints didnt know as much as they thought