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October, 1926 MARINE ERE VLE Ww 19 Lifting the engine and boilers intact out of a is estimated that it will cost about $27,000 to make the changes so that it will be suitable for commissioned ships after the ship scrapping has been completed. - In its present con- dition it takes two hours to sink the dock to the 4-foot level. By the time the last piece is off the drydock the dock is partially submerged. With one of the ship bottoms in the dry- dock the time required to raise the dock is 1% hours. It can be said that men are working on the hull bottom by the time it is out of the water. Make Own Oxygen Cutting by torch is one of the major operations in the ship scrap- ping program. At first bottles of oxygen and acetylene gas were used. To reduce the cost and to make the supply of gas and oxygen as conven- ient and flexible as possible the Ford company decided to install an oxygen plant capable of producing 2000 cubic feet of oxygen per hour at a purity of 99.5 per cent. In the meantime entirely successful experiments were carried out using coke oven gas of which there was a plentiful supply within the yard itself. The oxygen plant was completely erected ready for operation on June 6. The plant was furnished and installed complete in every way in the 14-inch steel mill building at the Fordson plant. The manufacture of oxygen consists of ex- tracting oxygen from the air by the liquifaction process. The air is liqui- fied and the nitrogen is first allowed cut down hull at Fordson—The capacity of the crane to evaporate. It consists chiefly of the following items: two steel low pressure purifying towers; one four- stage compressor; one steel solution mixing tank; one four-stage com- pressor; one steel oil separator cyl- inder with valve; one air drying and purifying battery consisting of eight high pressure seamless drawn steel cylinders, one steel’ high pres- sure air filter cylinder; one _ rec- tifying column constructed of an outer steel shell with spiral copper coils; one thawing coil and steel container; one oxygen meter for a maximum flow of 2500 cubic feet per hour; one gas holder with capacity for 1500 cubic feet of oxygen, constructed of is 100 tons—Taken June 25, 1926 8/16-inch steel braced with 2-inch angles; one high pressure oxygen compressor to compress 3500 cubic feet of oxygen to 150 atmospheres; one charging manifold of 20 connec- tions with control gage, check valve, shut-off valves and connecting piping of nigh pressure copper construction and the piping, valves, fittings, gages and safety devices necessary for proper operation. Pipe lines of oxygen, coke-oven gas and compressed air run along the outer side of the entire length of the new dock provided for the scrapping operations. There are frequent con- nections to these pipe lines from which rubber hose may be run on TUG BARRALTON AT HAMPTON ROADS, VA., FORD TUGS ONE OF THE FLEET OF SEVEN