VERY VERY HEAVY engineering

[SammyQ]

I'm sitting about a mile away from where those original photos were taken. One of the last shipwrights on the Newtownards Road, speaking to me many years ago, described fitting the (propeller) shaft into a ship's hull during building. He said, "good day, got it moved a foot; bad day, moved an inch". The item in question was a meter in diameter, over ten meters long, and could not be lifted in by Samson or Goliath (cranes) because of the location - under a completed hull. They had to move it in "by hand" - sheer, physical, brute work. I'm sure wedges and jacks were there, early eighties after all, but his point was, man power and decades of experience still mattered and were still used.

His family were historical shipbuilders and his tales of red-hot rivets flung from a mobile forge (several decks up on the scaffold) across space, above layers of other workers, to riveters with buckets to catch them, was a window on a different world.

Sam

 

[AES]

AES: I was in Switzerland last year, but not Winterthur; looks like I may have to go back for a museum visit!

Well Duncan, if/when you do come back, as well as Winterthur, don't forget to add Luzern to the lst too. Not only is it a very pretty small city, on the edge of the "4 States" lake complex, with paddle steamers, etc, but it also houses the "Verkehrshaus" (Transport Museum). Well worth a visit if you haven't been.

AES

 

[RossJarvis]

AES: I was in Switzerland last year, but not Winterthur; looks like I may have to go back for a museum visit!

Well Duncan, if/when you do come back, as well as Winterthur, don't forget to add Luzern to the lst too. Not only is it a very pretty small city, on the edge of the "4 States" lake complex, with paddle steamers, etc, but it also houses the "Verkehrshaus" (Transport Museum). Well worth a visit if you haven't been.

AES

Went to the Verkahrshaus and had to stay an extra day to see round it all, one of the best museums I've seen anywhere.