In this episode we're inside the Carpenter's shop of the battleship. For our video inside the Machine Shop, go to: • Battleship New Jersey'... To support this channel and the museum, go to:www.battleshipnewjersey.org/v...
I was assigned to the carpenter shop on the BIG J 84-87 as a HT3 one of many duties included making dignitaries FLAG BOXES SEA CHESTS AND RETIREMENT BOARDS for chiefs I have to say working with the teakwood was a challenge to say the least . The smaller area you spoke of was actually a locksmiths shop during my time , as a HT if we didn’t have a part or needed to design and build something we had all the resources on board to fabricate and build it .
@@jfox1078 They were probably contemporaries and may have crossed paths or served on the same ship at some point in their careers. The Navy was small before WWII and CWOs were in short supply, at least according to my father. Dad joined the Navy in the 30s. He retired with 30 years in the early 60s.
On the USS Forrestal the carpenter shop was 01-222-1-Q. The shop was used for the repair of the Captain's gig, Adm barge and crew boats. The also did damage repair parts also and plaques. And anything else the CO wanted.
Bet y’all had a nicer shop than what I had in Afghanistan, we had a hammer, a measuring tape, and a buzz saw, we also had an impact but no batteries. I was still somehow able to make a sturdy basketball hoop and put a roof over our gym
Just read about the failed efforts to turn her into a museum. Disappointing that didn’t end up happening. Had the wonderful opportunity to get some really cool personal tours on one of her predecessors a few years ago - USS Hornet. This history is special and worth keeping. Thanks for your time aboard serving the nation.
Bought my dad a "large" piece of the teak deck for Father's Day. Gave it to him last weekend and he's over the moon excited! Dad raised me in NJ and my grandfather lived in Camden! This is such a great artifact, thank you!!
When I served on USS Enterprise as Auxiliaries Officer, I didn't have a carpenter shop but a full machinery shop. One of the "urban" legends about her was a "missing" space that was on the drawing but a hatch into it could not be found. Finally, someone drilled a inspection hole into one of the bulkheads and found more heavy machinery equipment. Supposedly, loaded in by crane but the upper deck was installed before a bulkhead door was installed. Like I said, it was one of those "sea stories" one hears about!
I love that you can see the tooling marks on the decking. They were made by a machine called a shaper, hardly ever see them around anymore, but they are fantastic machines. Very effective and making things very flat.
Ryan's comment about a/c reminded me about the discussion triggered when the Army armored troops found out that the crew compartments of the M-1 Abrams tank were air-conditioned. Again, it was for the electronics that did not do so well when warm, and not necessarily for crew comfort
A plank from the New Jersey would make a nice base for a model of the battleship! People have done that with planks from other ships like USS Enterprise/CV-6.
My father was a Chief Carpenter's Mate on the USS Samuel Chase in WWII. The only picture of him was of him repairing a stitch of holes in the hull of a wooden boat on deck. The german planes always seemed to go for the Chase. One time, he was tasked with building a pie safe for the officers mess. He built it with hinges that allowed him to remove the pins so that he could have a pie when he wanted. He picked up exotic woods in Africa and England. He made 3 round trips across the Atlantic and for each trip he custom built a sea chest. One of my brothers found the chests after Dad died. They had all kinds of interesting souvenirs(the only military thing was a Scottish Tam).
in 1970 and 1971 I was on the USS Hunley AS 31, we had carpenters, pattern makers, foundry men shipfitter pipe and shipfitter metal. They had sheetmetal shops, shipfitter plate shops, pipe shops, lagging shops a foundry and a machine shop that was huge anything they needed they could make.
My first ship back in 1977 as a young HT just out of A school I was assigned to the carpenter shop on the USS Shenandoah (AD-26). Certainly an experience I will never forget. Excellent videos Ryan
I was a HT2 in R-DIV. on board BB62 back in 1984-86. Was part of Battle Group Romeo. HT's did it all. Pipefitters, Welders, tin bender, plumber and of course termite (carpenter). Long live shop 26, 17.
As an IC3 I was once tasked with reviving some long-dead TLIs (Tank Level Indicators) which lived in an obscure corner of the Fireroom Lower Level. They were mounted in a badly deteriorated drip enclosure, basically a 3-sided 1/8" steel box with heavier mounting flanges and a tapped 1/4" back to mount the gauges. As was standard, the HT crew was completely buried, with a Pending Jobs list a mile long. You could have heard a pin drop when I asked the chief if I could just snag a corner of their shop and build it myself...followed by laughter. Laughter turned to much head scratching as they began to figure out that "Sparky" was quite competent to bend plate, arc weld, tap holes, etc. Finally took pity on them and admitted that my dad owned a Fab Shop. I started burning rod on scrap steel when I was about 10 years old. By the time I was 16 I was playing with the lathes and milling machines.
In early August 1981, my Recruiter took me and a couple other to Naval Station Long Beach, CA to go on board the newly arrive USS New Jersey, this was the first weekend after she arrive. It was awesome. She always had a special place for me, being the first ship I actually went aboatd after signing my papers but not having gone to basic yet. I will be getting a piece of teak deck shortly! Thanks, Ryan! - Joe N. Plankowner USS Carl Vinson CVN-70
I really enjoy how your channel covers the day to day and logistics involved with a ship. I like to imagine what my grandfather’s day to day in ship stores was like when he served in WWII, he retired a CPO SKC 1943-1967.
Unauthorized 'shipalts' (ship alterations.) Both ships I served in had them though I don't THINK any of them compromised the ship's integrity though we did have one being done in Caron (DD 970,) in an office space on the O-3 level that affected (destroyed) one of our main gas turbine engines, one of two in the forward engine room. One of the guys in that space wanted to mount shelves or a cabinet on an interior bulkhead, so he drilled some holes in the aluminum bulkhead for mounting bolts or sheet metal screws. As he drilled through some small aluminum shavings fell into the air intake plenum, the largest of which were about the size of a fingernail paring. The ship was underway at the time in the Atlantic a couple of days out of the Straits of Gibraltar. One of those shavings got sucked into one of the forward engines and that is all it took to unbalance that big turbine (GE LM-2500, marine version of one you could find on a 747.) The turbine didn't explode but it tore itself to pieces in just a couple of seconds. We had to go alongside the Tender USS Puget Sound in Naples Italy for an engine changeout. When they lifted that engine vertically up that intake there was all kinds of debris falling out of it even then. We were moored alongside the tender for nearly a full week ... no Liberty ashore for anyone until the changeout and cleanup was done to the Chain of Command's satisfaction.
My Uncle Joseph P. Bouchard was a Carpenter's Mate on the U.S.S. New Hanover AKA 73 from 1944 to 1946 and served in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters.
You should see what a group of guys who deal with boiling and condensing water for a living can manage to construct and hide (in plain view) on a (theoretically) "dry" ship. Just some pipes, valves, and a couple of tanks buried in a whole space full of them...
Our shop on the Coral Sea had a sign over the door that said "Aviation Tire Store". Needless to say it wasn't air conditioned. We fixed that by finding the nearest duct and adapting (with duct tape!) it so we could run some of the big flexible yellow plastic air con hoses down from the overhead and into the door of the shop. There wasn't any worry about watertight integrity since the shop was on the hanger deck and if there was water coming in that door, we would have already been sunk.
@@knusern666 - how would they index it to ensure the deck was level? Bars along the walls or something similar? Taking a wild guess here that it was louder than a wood planer!
Dozens of things, both large and small on a ship. By the way, I bet that artifact equipment will work better and longer. I like the idea of saving saving them from everyday use. They still use antique Bridgeport milling machines and other equipment from the thirties. Instead of machinists , computers run this antique equipment equipment in the machine shop of the battleship is equipment that is still in service today. The carpentry shop is one example of what it really takes to take a ship to sea and fight her. They are are called damage controlmen for a reason. Thanks for taking care of that Battleship!
I served on the USS Dixie AD-14 we had a large carpenters shop. While we were on deployment in 1979-80 one of the guys built the XO a teak bedroom set from pallets picked up in PI.
@@johnm7249 Well I guess that's probably true eh? I'd imagine it has more to do with the ship having an compressed air supply and not so many electrical outlets maybe. Also, reliability. Can use it when power is out so long as there's compressed air (which would be presumably in damage control)
@@robertthomas5906 For sure. I just love old tools like that. Especially old wood ship saws, lathes, old cast iron machinery. You can step on air hoses all you want though. They're pressurized and small, so are really hard when operating. But yeah if you're moving with it and someone stepped on it. I've seen that happen.
I was a Sonartech on a destroyer and was, along the lines of a carpenter in this shop and making repairs underway…certified in 2M (miniature/micro miniature) repair. Soldering integrated circuit chips, boards, etc. very hard to run to an electronics store in the middle of the Persian Gulf! 🤘🤘🤘
Having had the dubious pleasure of repairing a lot of seawater and sea air damaged electronics over the years i gotta ask. How much of your time was just rubbing corrosion off boards and resoldering connections. Or was the climate control actually good enough to keep that crap out of the electrics.
@@darthrex354 we had AC that made us about the most hated division onboard. Most repairs were circuit boards/cards. Our equipment was one deck above the sonar dome and it was … well a sonar dome…Ton’s of moisture in that sucker 🙂 but, all of our gear was not near a source of moisture. Did repair other divisions crap at times though, if an electronics tech was not 2M. We had two onboard and was busy underway as the ship was about as old as I was.
They probably would never notice the extra heat. The bakery on a ship is f'ing hot all the time. I know, the berthing space I was in on the Coral Sea was right next to one.
My junior high shop teacher had stocked the entire, well equipped, shop with WW2 military surplus equipment from ships. I bet it is still working. They made quality machines back then.
The Coral Sea had a carpenter's shop. One of the guys in our shop (VMFA-531 Radar) was allowed to use it to make up some shelves that we used in embark boxes for our spare parts in the shop. The wood he used was mahogany. Believe it or not, it was from the pallets that our stores came over from during unreps. The pallets were from the Philippines where I guess there was so much mahogany from jungle clearing they could throw it away in the form of pallets for shipping Daisy Milk to the Navy. (Let's see how many comments on Daisy Milk I get) By the way, Henry took the shelves with him after the cruise was over. He didn't want to throw away the mahogany.
USS Georgia SSBN in my time, no wood working shop but we did have shoring wood in a DC bag specifically for water and pipe leaks. In reality, after sub-school, I never saw a piece of wood again. later.
In the Current US navy ships without teakwood decks but have machine shops might have SOME wood working equipment on board (mostly adaptions to existing metal working machines) but most likely and wood working requirements are going to be only addressed by civilian contractors while in port. That being said if the navy still uses wooden pallets I’m sure many of them get repurposed once they are no longer serviceable
By profession and training, Im an automotive tech and power engineer 5th. Atop of that Im rather well versed in construction and carpentry. That shop, while a bit on the cramped side (understandably) is a dream shop. That gear? Ill take that vintage stuff over much of the modern gear as it can be trusted to work! Side note, I do wish your online store would be able to ship internationally!
@@studinthemaking in 1944 it would be unusual to be owned by an individual as they were industrial drill presses and were very expensive in their time. it would not be unusual for military or industrial use.
I had a good laugh at those weld marks that were ground flat. someone use stainless steel filler instead of whatever was right. my bench at work looks like that since it's mild steel but I work with stainless and have filled a bunch of gouges with stainless rod also, I would LOVE to see whatever they used to machine that armor plate. that thing must have been a MONSTER of a machine
It's not worth their trouble to remove. Those racks are everywhere, and it would take a couple manhours per rack. Better to leave it be as anyone on ship(USN or not) can still use it to brace sagging bulkheads/overheads in case of emergency.
The fact that the carpenters cut through the armored bulkhead is hilarious. Modern woodworking equipment is just so much safer than 1940s stuff, i bet there were some Frodo nine-fingers coming out of that carpenters shop
2:29 it's a bad idea to crosscut a board right against the fence. Should have a stop block that falls short if the blade. The motor on that saw sounded awesome though.
I finished my 20 in 1983, after many of the changes were made to make navy serive more attractive to volunteers, but the concept of our junior department officers overlooking piercing of water tight bulkheads (which also means the space will not be able to set conditon W to prevent smoke from being circulated into other spaces) during inspections which were held at least quarterly is beyond believing. How did the New Jersey ever win a DC award when her water tight integrity was compromized like this.
Carpenters installing air conditioners where they shouldn’t….. lemme tell you the story about being part of a group of army engineers remodeling the PX building at Camp McCallister Oklahoma in 1999 and we swiped all the window AC Units and installed ACs in our Tents and even honked up some to Ac/DC converters and ACed the back of Deuce and an Half trucks. Oh and we also stole the Seabees massively oversized picnic table
Would it be possible to get some info on that band saw in the shop? Make & size ? ( By chance a "Superior" made in Chicago?) ?Original equipment on the ship ? Thank you
Good video, but I expected more info on the actual machinery and tools in the shop. This also was the case with the "find the keel" video, there wasn't much discussion of the keel itself. Although there isn't much wood in a battleship in terms of structural or functional applications, I imagine there are doors, trim, furniture and the like in the officers' quarters. And I bet there were lots of little tools, fixtures, or appliances in all major divisions, including mess, sick bay, engineering, etc, due to the unique properties of wood. The fact that they had a jointer and good sized planer points to cabinetmaking, or similar precise work.
Wood does weird things when it undergoes humidity changes. Not sure if battleships need fine cabinetry and craftsmanship, but you're going to get much better results from beams and shoring timbers that are straight, than from split up splinters and warped beams that curve like jug handles. I'd approve an A/C unit for the carpentry shop if regs permitted it, amd look the other way, if not.
What did the carpenters compartment do for dust extraction if anything at all? It must have been brutal working in an enclosed compartment without dust extraction.
That machinery would likely sell for far more than modern machinery and someone would restore it. Everyone loves the old stuff in their shops they're unkillable.
Maybe you should talk to them. Maybe they can work out a deal. Otherwise that would be like a 20K desk. However the President would have to move over. Resolute desk? LOL Mine was made from the USS NJ! So there!
You really got my attention when you looked like you were going to use the table saw without safety glasses! (Don't get me started on hearing protection!). That handsaw guard is supposed to be all the way down when not in use....
You should make international shipping available on the pieces of teak, it was a real pain to purchase from Australia through a US shipping agent. Otherwise keep up the good work and the videos!
You're wrong about the air conditioning birthing spaces it did have air condition in birthing spaces the machinery in there by and large is typical of the error of that ship the unisol the paramedic planer the various drill presses or of the error of the New Jersey unisol came out in 1939 they were equipped on many ships in the Navy thank you
That crosscut on the table saw made me cringe. Looked like the cut off piece was between the blade and rip fence.😢. Don’t do that as a DC and old shop teacher.