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A Model Boiler Works. In a recent issue of the REview a description was Bivcmiol the new engine works connected with the ship and engine build- ing plant of the Detroit Dry Dock Company, Detroit, Mich., and now there is presented on the following pages some engravings showing the boiler shops connected with these works, known as the Dry Dock Engine Works. 'These boiler shops, which adjoin the engine works and dry docks, are connected with both by railway switches. In addition to one small fire box boiler for a tug, there is now building and under contract in these shops eighteen large boilers for the six big freight and passenger steamers to be turned out by the dry dock company this winter. 'The following table will prove interesting in showing the size of these boilers - Steamers and Owners. Number of Diameter. Length. Boilers. No. 112, Mackinaw Car Ferry -_ 4 Tolieetitem oe 18 ft. No. 113, Eddy Bros., Bay City_ 2 Aten Deas Tee ORI Noe. Cio, Nav. Co... - 4 nae 20a, Noms IN, YC. & OW. R. Ry. 2 Ieee (Onion Sie Nomimno. D. 02.C. S, Nay, Co... 4 Tees Zo) ° No. 117, Capt. Ruelle, Detroit (Gio Fes Sore ea a I © if, © wen; TD atite No. 118, Northwest'n Trans.Co. 2 ales tc ere Tele Ost The new shop for the manufacture of boilers is 180 feet long, 70 feet wide and about 50 feet in height. The main building, which is about 45 feet in width, is lighted by an immense skylight, and by continuous windows with heavy frames around the out- ward portions of the sides of the shop just under the roof. In this main building, a 20-ton electric crane is fitted to an overhead system of tracks, so as to operate over the full length and width of the floor space, and another most important feature of the shop is a riveting tower 50 feet in height with a 25-ton radial hy- draulic crane and a 1oo-ton hydraulic riveting machine. Back of the riveting tower and in an adjoining portion of the building is an engine of 100 horse power, two boilers, pump, accumulator and storage tank for the hydraulic machinery. Besides the ordinary punches, shears and countersinking machines, there is included in the general equipment of the works one 18-foot and one 20-foot plate planer, two drilling machines, a set of 20-foot boiler plate rolls capable of rolling plates 14% inches in thickness and a hydraulic flanging machine. An L, shaped addition to this main shop, 30 by 80 feet, which will contain part of the mach- inery, isnow about completed, while in the old boiler shop, which adjoins the new structure, the blacksmiths' fires and some small machines are located. Accompanying the different views of these boiler works is a view of a portion of the dock yards of the dry dock company, showing the wooden steamer W. B. Morley, built at Marine City, by C. T. Morley, but recently equipped with power by the Dry Dock Engine Works. 'The shear legs used in the dock yard for this purpose is also shown in the engraving. 'The Morley isa first-class wooden steamer, valued at $125,000 and of 1,565 net tons measurement. She has a fore and aft compound engine with cylinders 27 and 50 inches by 4o inches stroke, with air pump, condenser, feed, bilge and cold water pumps connected, and steam reversing gear. She has one boiler 11 feet 6 inches diameter and 16 feet long, of Seamens-Martin steel, built to with- stand a pressure of 110 pounds to the square inch. Three New Anchor Line Steamers. The supplemental illustrations in this issue of the REvIEW show the three new steamers built for the Erie & Western Trans- portation Company, the Anchor Line, during the past summer, by three different ship building companies, the Detroit Dry Dock Company, Detroit, the Globe Iron Works Company, Cleveland, and the Union Dry Dock Company, Buffalo. They were built from the same specifications, but each steamer embodies the ideas of the different builders, and there is considerable interest taken in the performance of the boats. General Manager Evans says MARINE REVIEW. 11 that as yet no noticeable degree of superiority has been developed by either steamer. 'The REVIEW expects to present as soon as obtainable a technical report of the performance, that will show the practical efficiency of different theories held by men who are responsible for the different features in these steamers. The keel length, beam and depth of the hulls are the same in all the steamers--275 feet, 4o feet and 26 feet. The percent. of fullness at bow and stern is distributed differently in each case, although there was not enough lee-way as to desired carrying capacity to allow any radical difference. 'The steamers are straight-decked, and are the first on the lakes that have straight-decks without the '"'tumble-home" which accompanies this new feature in the monitors and whalebacks. To secure better appearance, the Globe Iron Works Company added enough shear at either end of the Schuylkill to prevent the apparent drop noticeable in the other two. Following are particulars of the machinery of the different steamers: The Codorus was engined by H. G. Trout & Co., Buffalo, and the cylinders are 20, 32 and 54 inches by 44 inches stroke. The boilers, two in number, furnished by the Lake Erie Boiler Works, Buffalo, are 14 feet diameter and 12 feet long. The wheel is 121% feet diameter by 15 feet pitch. 'Ihe Mahon- ing's engines are 20, 32 and 54 inches by 42 inches stroke and the boilers are 14 by 12 feet, the wheel being? 12% feet by 15 feet g inches pitch. The Schuylkill's engines are 20, 32 and 52 by 42 inches stroke, and her boilers are 14 feet by 12% feet, the wheel having 15 feet pitch and being 13 feet in diameter. Nickel Steel for Machinery and Boilers. Commodore Melville, engineer-in-chief of the United States navy, has begun some very valuable experiments with a view to testing the value of nickel steel for machinery. One of the greatest objects in the way of increasing power in cargo steamers, is the additional weight required in engines and boilers. Marine engineers have found this a great question to contend with, and in England, as well as this country, an effort is now being made to secure a change in the system of testing boilers, with a view to reducing the thickness and weight of the shells. Engineers argue that the margin of safety is far in excess of reasonable requirements in these days of high pressure boilers and improved material and workmanship. 'The use of nickel steel may now solve the question. The cost of 'this steel for machinery or boilers would be slightly, if any, in excess of the cost of ordinary steel, inasmuch as the percentage of nickel used is very small, and is mixed with the charge in the furnace before the metal is poured. It can readily be seen, then, that this metal will have an immense value for use in connection with machinery--if it should prove entirely successful in its present application--when it is learned that its tensile strength is 90,000 pounds per square inch, with 20 per cent. elongation, as against 60,000 and 65,600 pounds tensile strength, with the same elongation, for the carbon steel ordinarily used. Very little has been published in regard to the use of nickel steel for other purposes than armor plates, but Commodore Mel- ville has been placed in possession of the results of some very valuable experiments which have been made by the Bethlehem Iron Company, and as a consequence has decided to have a sec- tion of the propeller shafting of the Brooklyn and the sea-going battle ship No. 1 made of the steel! Boilers are now constructed of 58,000 pounds tensile steel and sometimes are as much as 1% inches in thickness. As the thickness is inversely proportioned to the strength of the material, it is a matter of course that if it is possible to use a material whose tensile strength is one and half that now in use, the boiler shells will only have two-thirds the thickness of the present shells, or a boiler would have a shell 1 inch thick instead of 1% inches.