Steel Goes To Sea (1941) 

Shipyards on the Clyde were closing between the wars. Looking at the labour intensive riveting no wonder, welding was already replacing it abroad. Lack of foresight by yard owners.

I am a history buff and grateful to RU-vid for preserving this information.

are there small yards left anywhere? apart from small yards that produce pleasure craft.

Served my apprenticeship as a shipwright in Hawthorn Leslie's in the 1950's. Breaks my heart to see the Tyne now, but at least it is a cleaner rover now.

jan visser kb

A red-hot rivet would balk at a fraction of a mil? I think you exaggerate.

@@VidkunQL lol, yes they were made to deform when red hot, that was their whole purpose. That was not a "thousandth of an inch" tolerance factor. I respect the craftsmanship and hard work, but lets not make it more than it really was.

I suspect the top holes were punched into the raw plate and the holes underneath were drilled onsite using the top hole as a drill guide after the plate was mounted with guide bolts. That's the only way you could align rivet holes that accurately. Trying to align two punched holes with tooling like that would be next to impossible on a production basis.

I too was born in a place close to a shipyard in the mid 40's, this yard was also across the river. The town was Sunderland a great ship building town.

Thats why it took 5 years to not only learn the job, but survive it, they made ear plugs from cotton wool and candle wax, warm it would be pushed into the ear to mould to the shape. They worked. My grandfather was a hammerman before he went to war in 1914, he survived that disaster, obviously, or I would not be typing! He must have taken his earplugs to the war, as he was not deaf to his dying day in 1961 rip

Whenever i watch these short films of workers of pre war and wartime workplaces you can feel their pride in what they are making,great film

People were harder.

What's up sunshine

If you look closely, they're using a hydraulic jack.

@@rorypenstock1763 yes just like a flanging press for railroad steam engine fireboxes and parts, or open die forging of sorts, only the peg holes in the floor are the forming die, but as it were it was an aquired skill and a bit of art in metal forming, no differant today, only the tools may have changed or the power might be air or hydraulic or servo but the concept is still there, and as for the kids that was how they learned their trade, fathers and sons working side by side togather as had been the case for centuries, or a son would apprentice to a trade or teacher to learn, the origional take your son's or daughters to work day but it was every day heh. what I am shocked by is they did not have a hydraulic riveter or at least an air hammer to drive the rivets they were doing it by hand and in briten no less, in the usa well before then they were using pnumatic hammers to run rivets for boilers and buildings if not hydraulic yoke riveters, and that was at the turn of the 20th century, or at least for calking the seams in the plates, that is driving the metal tight around the gap between each plate so it dont leak using a blunt chisle for the purpose

It's the nationalism.

+Joe Soap When the cloth cap was king.

It was only from the end of 1980's onward that Industry in general became more safety conscious because of increasing insurance claims received following accidents in the workplace were awarded successfully. This trend originated in the USA and blew over to the (mainly Western) Industrialized countries worldwide. Before that time it was more left to the worker "one hand for yourself and the other for the ship" (or factory if land based).

Unions were mostly responsible for safety improvements.

And yet if you look at the comments on this and other old films there will be complaints about health and safety Nazis as if health and safety is a bad thing.

Tougher people. Now everyone cries about paper cuts.

Likely this is a yard to build the hull and they're floating it to fitting yard.

@wilson pickett i have welded in a shipyard on a warship. In the time it took them the heat and hsmmer a rivet, i could lay 3' of 3/8" filet weld. Plus, welds didnt spall when struck by a shell. And don't forget that welding saves weight and raw material. I would wager that the reason they are rivetting instead of welding has more to do with the lack of men with welding skill than with the few advantages found in riveting.

@@DoyleHargraves I dont know much about ship building but i know grafters when i see them and these workers were grafters,welding looks a piece of piss compared to riveting but what do i know.

@@DoyleHargraves Welding came later, oxy acetyline was only used for cutting or welding thin sheet metal in those days. The welding thing only started after the war in uk.

@@jr8163 World War 2 wasn't a beauty contest.

@@DoyleHargraves Welding ships together was first done during World War 2 including the Liberty ships in the US, which were a lot like the ones shown in the film. The first Liberty ships had a tendency to break apart and had to have a reinforcing plate riveted on. As far as the lack of skilled welders, some 2600 Liberty ships were built by unskilled laborers who learned on the job. Many came from impoverished rural areas to work in shipyards that were built almost overnight to meet the demands of ship production. Riveting was proven technology while welding was still in it's infancy. Only the speedy production demands of World War 2 forced the shipbuilding industry to adopt it, and to tolerate the steep learning curve.

Nope. Just pay expendable people starvation wages in authoritarian countries for fun and profit.

@@s.sestric9929 Poor living standards would be part of the answer definitely. But life was hardly grand in Britain at the time either, even allowing for the war years. Owners are rarely generous.

A consequence of rebuilding Japan and Germany (West) was they each had new shipyards and modern labor arrangements to compete ang gain market share from war weary Britain.

Do not comment if you know little.

@@mrtulipeater The problem was not investment and rebuilding - the UK got 2.2 times the amount of Marshall Aid that Germany received. Where did it go?The UK problems were deeper-rooted - poor management, lack of trust between labour and management, failure to adapt. See also the fate of the UK car industry.

So, you're a skimmer then? ;)

I was a shipboard member of every sea command I was attached to.

La integridad de un trabajador influye en la calidad del producto, si trabajaban claro, pero las lesiones que sufrían hacía que rindieran menos y que hubiera una mayor taza de mortalidad. Es importante cuidar de su gente

It was the welding and prefabrication of the ww2 liberty ships in the States that were built by the thousands(over 2700) that got that whole ball rolling.

I think it's because the axis ran out of men first.

Resources are not for everyone and those wars won the world for the Anglo-Americans, a world they ignorantly lost do to a lack of guts. I say this as an eastern enemy of that order.

@@danyvarna5094 I would say a lack of common sense, imho.

@@johnstudd4245, maybe it is so. It seems that common sense is pretty uncommon ourdays.

Let me think might there have been a slight problem with lighting the shipyard up at night?

@@COIcultist Blackout orders may have been a part of it. Those wouldn't have helped much, if the islands were starved from lack of merchant ships and escorts to protect them. I'm thinking that the labour unions were the biggest factor. Of course, this is only conjecture on my part.

@@stevenpilling3773 I might have another look the blackout was policed with a religious zeal. There were labour disputes at times, bad things happened with the miners at one point, but people knew what they were working against if not necessarily what they were working for. Lots of industries got to the point where even management realised people had to work fewer hours. People were working for more hours, but you were getting less total work out of them not just less work per hour. 1941 is a key year after then even if you suspected Soviet direction of the unions that would have changed but during 1941 I can't counter that. I just wonder how many days, weeks or months of work would you endanger by lighting a shipyard. We were acutely aware of the situation Churchill stated that The Battle of The Atlantic was the only thing that truly worried him.

@@COIcultist I was remembering how, in New Zealand, the 1st Marine Division had to unload their ships because the longshoreman's union refused to do so in adherence with their peacetime contract. They even threatened violence against the Marines if they offloaded themselves. General Vandegrift made it plain that there would be drastic consequences if they tried. They didn't!

@@stevenpilling3773 *" In adherence with their peacetime contract."* Was this at a time of peace or war? Just after the Falklands conflict I was at college (day release) with quite a few classmates who worked for British Aerospace they were saying how when things were needed they were done in a fraction of the peacetime development time. They particularly related to a refuelling probe for Hercules transporters. This was done in a matter of a couple of weeks with staff attending the (weekend) demonstration who would have gone straight back to work had there been a problem. Alright overtime was paid like it was going out of fashion but when push comes to shove indigenous workers will push work out. While the Kaiser shipyards did a record 4-day build of a Liberty Ship my befuddled mind was looking for a record build on a Lancaster Bomber. Alas, the film I remembered was a build on a Wellington (Designed by Sir Barnes "Dam buster" Wallis) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zlVLZ230iFs.html When moments of need are required by a country I think your average Joe is the first man to stand up to the plate.