No other museum ship has a resource like you, Older Tom Scott. I am talking about taking us extremely deep into the interiors of Texas where nobody is allowed to go to. Thank you.
Tom is great, but also a shout-out for Ryan of USS NJ and Paul from USS Cod because they also make time for the nitty-gritty on their ships. However, as a WW1 era ship, Texas is a special breed and these video's are greatly appreciated.
@@Tuning3434 I like Ryan because he is cool and educational but his videographer/editor seems to like to shoot videos where only Ryan's whole body is in the video. His videographer doesn't let him do first person videos in the belly of the beast like Tom does in all of his videos. Tom's videos are incredibly technical, which is great for ship aficionados and especially USS Texas fans.
Absolutely incredible. This is the kind of quality content The History Channel USED TO produce. Probably the best explanation of how oil and coal boilers worked that I’ve seen. Thank you!
My father was a Navy machinist mate from 1937 - 1957. He made chief in late '44 either just before or just after his participation in the Battle of Surigao Strait where the Grand Old Ladies made scrap of two Japanese battleships. He passed in 1984 before the Internet. He would have loved videos like this. Thank you!
In from '37 but it took til late '44 to "make chief" and he stayed in til '57? So he made "Chief Machinist Mate"? A chief is a Chief Boatswain Mate regardless of "rating". By '57 he should have been a Master Chief at least.
@@deeremeyer1749 there was no senior chief or master chief _until_ the year he retired, 1957. He was a push-button senior chief if he had stayed 2 more years. They used to call me AT1 when I was in the Navy and "A chief is a Chief Boatswain Mate regardless of 'rating'." makes no sense to me. Are you American?
One of my favorite TH-camrs talking about one of my favorite topics! I’d love to work feeding a coal fired boiler on a ship for an ocean crossing. I’d never complain about my actual job again!
Thank you! Working as a stoker in order to better appreciate your job is like eating a live frog every morning. You won't have to face anything worse the rest of the day!
I am very happy that I never had to do that! Of course, you were either working with 600 or 1200 lb. boilers, so I imagine that you more easily risked spalling from heating it too fast. I suspect you could also have erosion from burner flame impinging on the brick. Both were fairly easy to avoid on the old 300 lb. systems.
when my dad got to Norfolk in spring of 51 as an unassigned Seaman deuce, he was assigned to the fire rooms on his DE and he and another apprentice spent 7 weeks hauling brick and cement up and over the rail. he then became a BT3 and ran #1 fire room on an APD and just before getting out in jan 55, he ran all the fire rooms on the AGC (command and control ship) he was assigned to. he had a 2nd class that was pretty useless i guess hence why the Chief put him in charge...
At the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, they set up the world's largest boiler house. An immense row of boilers with a viewing gallery. The entire fair was fueled with oil supplied by the Standard Oil Company through a 40 mile pipeline to a fuel depot on the edge of the fairgrounds, then two pumps supplied a standpipe to the boiler house. The boiler attendants wore starched white uniforms.
Some insane demonstrations used to go down at the World’s Fair. Can you imagine being a regular citizen and seeing such a display for the first time?!?!
@@cruisinguy6024 That was the fair where most people saw electric light for the first time. Westinghouse alone set up like 15 engines generating electricity from all the steam. An artist created an illustration of the 2,000 h.p. Allis-Corliss engine with tandem belts driving two Tesla-Westinghouse two-phase generators. It was quite the show.
@@rtqiiI just can't even imagine what it must have been like to attend one from the later 1800s up to 1940 or so. The technology introduced was unheard of and these events lasted *half a year* to showcase truly groundbreaking human development. I just can't imagine what it must have been like to experience electricity for the first time, for example.
@@cruisinguy6024 Tesla had his own exhibit at the fair, and a switchboard with 500 h.p. two-phase alternating current on tap. He demonstrated a device called "Tesla's Egg of Columbus" which caused wireless motor armatures: discs, cylinders, and egg geometries to spin anywhere in the hall. I find records of similar devices, but none that were ever demonstrated at that power level, or reported those type effects.
Very educational. I always assumed the coal fired boilers were set up like a steam locomotive. Very interesting to see the huge difference between the two.
Superbly well done explanation of the Babcock & Wilcox boilers. I worked on coalfired electrical generating stations, and Babcock & Wilcox is legendary in that business. I also worked in semiconductor fabrication too. Solar is not nearly as clean as advertised. The silicon is etched with some nasty acids that produce gas that is 17,540x worse than CO2.
Excellent presentation and well researched. I am fascinated by the manual steam drum water level controls. I can only imagine the challenge of controlling the steam drum water level in a heavy sea! A coworker of mine once served on a WWII era destroyer. This was in the early 1970's. According to him, his duty station assignment was to maintain the steam drum water level by monitoring the level gauge and adjusting the manual feed water valve as required. I'm sure one of your viewers might have insight into this process.
Go to Google Books and enter "Pointers on Boiler Operation". The top hit should be a 1944 U.S. Navy steam manual. It was Not easy! It didn't take much to destroy boiler tubes and make it a trip to a shipyard for very expensive repairs.
I work with more modern water-tube and fire-tube boilers and I love the history behind steam generation.. such a good video. All the right info without going through too much.
Steam power is fascinating. Not many people realize that most power generation still operates on steam. Fuel sources vary but it all involves generating steam to spin turbines.
Thanks for that Mr Scott. Did you know that water tube boilers of the three drum variety were tried on locomotives? They were not successful. Apart from the use of coal as fuel, long thin shapes do,not make,for efficient three drum boilers. Plus the constant vibration of a reciprocating locomotive literally shook them to pieces.
As a chief engineer of steamships I commend you for your excellent narration. You set a standard that is far beyond that exhibited by other historical ship sites.
Very informative and interesting. I had assumed that coal was entirely synonymous with fire tube boilers, and oil with water tube. Those kinds of intermediary technologies are often the best illustrations of the iterative nature of design. It is great to see somebody go in depth on these engineering topics, especially on such a fascinating vessel whose service spanned a period of such rapid and unprecedented advancement and change. While obviously important, all the flashy guns and armor tend to steal the thunder of the systems that allowed the ship to sail and the men to be fed and watered.
The designs were not fixed upon whether they are coal or oil fired. As shown in the video, both coal and oil fired boilers used on Texas were small water tube designs. Small, water filled tube designs started coming into common use as they matured in the late 1890's and almost all were coal fired. The design only became associated with oil once it became available in needed quantities world wide in the 1910's. That led to an incorrect appearance that oil was used with small tube, and coal with fire fire tube boilers. There are applications where oil fire tube designs have significant advantages over small water tubes, but I didn't discuss them because they lay outside of power for warships. They continued to be used where the goal is to provide a constant level of steam using less than perfect water, and that didn't normally see sudden changes in demand, like steam boilers for cruise ships, and heating buildings or providing power for industrial plants.
my dad was a Boiler Technician 3rd class 1951-1955 on first DE-698 USS Raby then APD-106 USS Walter B. Cobb. he spent about a month or so (maybe less) on the AGC-8 USS Mt. Olympus before being discharged. he enjoyed his time in the navy and as a 3rd class was in charge of his fire room on the Cobb and then in charge of all the fire rooms on the Mt. Olympus because he was that good at his job, while a 2nd class had to do as he directed
In WWI my father was on large coal burning auxiliaries. A destroyer tender and a troop transport. Coaling was all hands. They use to coat their bodies with oil or a jelly like lubricant to fill their pores to keep coal out and make later washing up easier. Coal was dumped on deck by conveyors from coaling ships and then shoveled into buckets or wheelbarrows. Then moved along deck to the chutes to the coal bunkers. The pictures he had show him and his mates covered with coal dust looking like a minstrel show. In those days few ships had evaporators to make fresh water, so washing was in salt water and then a fresh water rinse. On one ship sailors got 1 gallon of fresh water a day. First you washed yourself and then you washed your clothes. They hung their clothes on the lifelines or uptakes to dry. When I went thru navy boot camp in the mid 1960s, we had to hand wash our clothes for the first half.
Great video. Really great explanation. I have never understood why they didn’t have the water in the big space and route the steam through the pipes. Works very well on British Steam trains of the same era. Keep them coming.
Thank you! I've served as Machinist Mate aboard nuclear and oil fired ships. I always said that the Boiler Techs were the only people on the ship that MMs could feel sorry for. Seems it was even more true in coal fired days.
Nice video. I am on shift taking care of the Powerhouse for a hospital right now. I enjoy being a Watertender and always have even when handling coal and Bunker C Oil fired boilers. I was Chief Engineer in a Powerhouse with 4 1600bhp Babcock and Wilcox Sterling pattern boilers that were 4 stories high. I am very familiar with everything in the video
That is high praise, I am glad you liked it. I have also produced a video on the Dyson oil fired boilers that replaced these units. If you are interested, you can go to it here. th-cam.com/video/DhmUHQ_wcvE/w-d-xo.html
Fantastic explanation. I support the Texas rebuild and have memorabilia eg pieces of the hull etc here in Australia. Why? Because my grandkids are Texans
Thank you for a fascinating history and set of photographs. It's interesting that the boilers on the Liberty Ship-class cargo vessels of WWII were very similar, except for use of residual fuel oil instead of coal, to the original boilers on the Texas.
The Dyson boilers installed on Texas in 1925 burned residual oil, with one distinction. Except for a handful of emergency tanks in the inner bottom, none of her 92 tanks were heated. For that reason, she and most U.S. ships burned Navy Special Fuel Oil that was Bunker C diluted with a distillate (usually diesel) to improve viscosity. From what I read, that was the fuel of choice until the 1970's.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 Fuel oil tanks on Liberty ships were heated and I believe there were two sets of inline heaters on the engine room oil lines. If I remember correctly, the BunkerC fuel they were designed to burn had to be heated to about 110 degrees F to flow through the lines, filters and pumps and 180 degrees F to atomize properly in the burners. Steam atomizers were not used. I was an engine room volunteer on the operating museum ship, the Liberty ship SS JOHN W BROWN. Early in the ship’s reactivation, the ship’s fuel oil tanks in the double bottom had been cleaned by hand (which must have been a truly horrible job) and filled with water and rust inhibitor. The ship’s fuel was now ucarried in what had originally been a cargo oil tank in no. 4 hold. To avoid having to heat the fuel, we used no.2 fuel oil (home heating oil).
Something I've never seen properly answered: Why did water tube boilers never take off in rail use? They were attempted a few times, but never became too popular. Was it a maintenance thing? The need to use dirtier water? Was the volume of water that they held useful as a 'battery', to meet brief heavy demands beyond the ability of the stoker? Great video. Thanks!
That's better answered by a locomotive person. My best estimate is that at the least, fire tube boilers are much more forgiving. As you said, they can tolerate dirty water better. While they don't respond well to sudden, large changes in load, I don't think that is usually an issue with trains. Its large mass of heated water will likely hold up better to over an under fueling it. I suspect it would also be easier to open up the smoke box at the front of the locomotive, and brush and blow out the fire tubes than it would be to clean the outside of tubes in a water tube boiler. So, while fire tube boilers weren't the answer for warships where weight and ability to respond to sudden, large changes in load, they worked well for trains.
I believe two main reasons: first, a condenser is impractical on a locomotive, so the water is used once then discarded. Thus the quantities of water needed are huge and it inevitably has dissolved solids, so even with additives scale accumulation is rapid due to the smaller evaporative area and lack of a place from which sludge could be "blown down". Also the shape of a water-tube boiler can't be effectively morphed into a long, narrow horizontal design. There were likely others...
I believe it had a lot to do with the ability to use the water in the boiler as a “battery”. Water tube boilers don’t have very much water in them, so they work best in applications where they will spend a lot of time operating in steady-state conditions. Trains do a lot of stopping and starting and have constantly changing demand for steam. The large mass of water in a fire-tube boiler helped smooth out those transitions and avoid significant changes in water level in the boiler.
Before we shit all over coal maybe go read some good books on modern coal boilers. That is still a fantastically well done analysis and breakdown of the boilers! Fluidized beds can insure an efficient and almost total burn of the fuel. Babcock and Wilcox was one of the best ever in coalfired boiler design. Coal can also be turned into lighting & heating gas, gasoline and oil too. Gilsonite asphalt was refined into 115-145 tetra ethyl lead aviation gas to help win WWII with air power. It was also refined into heavy feedstocks kerosene, light gases and everything in between.
I figured someone would be upset about my criticism of coal, but I hoped they would realize that it is limited to its use in ships prior to the introduction of fuel oil. Oh, well. I am reasonably aware of what can be done with coal these days, including fluidized beds, etc. However, that has nothing to do with this video, which is limited to early 20th century marine coal fired boilers. Everything I said was true within that context and I felt no obligation to explain 100 years of evolution that has occurred since their use. The fact is that back then, coal was filthy, and difficult to handle and burn in a ship. Until fuel oil came along that was a clearly superior marine fuel in every way, they simply had no other choice. I also apparently failed to get across to you that the video is practically a love letter to the terrific Babcock and Wilcox design that was efficient, reliable and got the most out of what was a very dirty and highly variable source of energy.
No, the gun directors were removed by the Navy before the ship was donated to the State of Texas. Also removed were the Ford Mk 1 range keepers in main battery plotting room. The only sighting devices left on board are the two 20' base range finders in turrets 2 and 4.
Excellent presentation, thank you, a couple of points, when you say scuppers, I think you mean bunker lids / doors , scuppers are for allowing water to escape over the side . an very important part of using coal firing , particularly on warships was the use of forced draft as apposed to natural draft , this allowed a doubling of coal burnt per unit of area on the grate , ie greatly increasing the power from the boiler without increasing its size/ weight .
Thanks, I am aware of the difference between scuttles and scuppers; that is one of my more embarrassing screw ups. Even though I didn't mention it, I am aware of the benefits of forced draft. Both the coal fired and oil fired boilers used on Texas were designed to take advantage of it. varying the blower speed, thus the pressure in the room, was how they fine tuned fuel:air ratio with the later Dyson boilers.
@@tomscotttheolderone364titanic also used forced air to pressure the boiler room thus increasing air flow and making the working conditions less dusty.
Wonderful video, I learned a lot! One question: when they switched to oil fired boilers, were they able to increase the steam pressure and the power of the engines? Or did the engines and the plumbing limit them to the same steam pressure?
Steam pressure remained the same. First, US. Navy boilers produced a maximum pressure of 300psi due to the limits of riveted construction. It wasn't until they approved welding for pressure vessels in the 1930's that pressure increased to 600psi. Even if they could have gone higher, engines, auxiliary equipment and pipes were all designed for 295lb. steam, so that also created a limit. However, the change to oil was still very desirable. There were not only the obvious things like a cleaner ship, fast refueling, more storage and smaller boiler room crew sizes, there were other major dividends. The ship's range practically doubled, and the six oil fired boilers that took the place of fourteen coal fired units produced more steam. That not only reduced fluctuations as big loads were added or subtracted, it provided a safety marge if a boiler was lost or a major steam line ruptured. The placement of fuel oil tanks along the inside of the ship's hull also greatly increased torpedo protection.
The same Mk. XIV, Mod. 1 firing lock was used on both the 14" and 5" guns on Texas, and was a combination percussion and electric firing lock. You can find some good illustrations and description of its operation by using Google Books and looking for "Naval Ordnance and Gunnery 1944". You can also use the following link where I give a description of its operation along with color graphics of the lock and how the components move: th-cam.com/video/odM1htLyDoM/w-d-xo.html
@@voodochild5 I assume that you are referring to the 8"/55cal., Mk 12 gun. I can only tell you that while they share the same primer and firing lock, they have nothing else in common with the guns on Texas. What I know regarding operations and maintenance simply doesn't apply to your gun. I don't know what level of research you have attempted, but I suggest starting at the NAVWEAPS website that has a good description of the gun and also a bibliography at the end of the listing that would serve as a good start for searches.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 yes sir, I have done some preliminary research on navweaps, was just hoping to bounce some ideas on maintenance of this welin breech with you as we have done an initial teardown and lube, but plan to utilize this gun for a good long while for test firing.
Great info & pictures. I highly recommend not speed reading a script so u can leave pics up longer......will make for a much better presentation. Take my word for it; I've been a historian for 59 years.
I understand what you are saying. However, I have some experience with these things also, plus the ability to review analytics for the videos. I concluded a while back that what I am doing seems to provide the best balance.
The boom in the oil industry was related to the millions of autos which took to the road in the years before and after The Great War. Refiners found themselves with increasing quantities of useless gooey glop which they dubbed "residual oil" until they had brilliant idea: rather than dump it in the river, we'll sell it to the Navy! Once we tell the admirals no big columns of smoke which may be seen a hundred miles away we'll have them on board, then we can sell it to the merchant fleet...
Well, not really. The U.S. and Great Britain, to name two countries, worked hard on oil as a means of improving ship power and more importantly, solve several major problems associated with transporting coal and refueling. There is plenty of documentation from the 1890's and later that show the Navy was working hard at research and development of oil fired boilers, and creating an oil infrastructure, including their own oil leases. For Great Britain, they knew that oil was the future and the need for it to fuel their army and navy was a major motivating force behind their cooperation with the Dutch and the creation of Shell Oil.
Actually, the gasoline was the waste product, which is why autos used it. There was no other use for it and it was a good fit for the more primitive Otto cycle used by automobiles, which is incapable of using more stable fuels. The residual oils are a pretty useful fuel and their low flashpoint makes them much safer than volatile stuff like gasoline. They’re not called residuals because they were a leftovers waste product, they’re called residuals because they’re what remains after the volatiles have been distilled out of the crude oil.
Yah I found it funny ... I went into the navy summer 1980 and then went to welders schools before the fleet... AND I was in San Diego 32nd street naval base after work I'd go back to the Barracks before dinner a bunch of us would be I'm the tv lounge and we'd watch Benny hill and a few other shows but they'd be alot of bs back in forth and me and afew old sailors I'm mean OLDER LIKE 55-60 THEY'D been in since before Korean War and they had all the sea stories you'd ever want one day 3 started arguing about which ship they'd been on was faster and some how it's switched to fuel (they where mm and boilermen) and they as we got going to chow all agreed that the old "heavy bunker oil" was the best fuel for boilers ever but it was filthy as hell and you could see the black smoke over the horizon..... 😂😂😂😂
Wow! Coal fired stuff sucked badly. I cant imagine loading the hold with coal, and then living in it for a extended period of time. Jeezz, black lung anyone. Begs the question, does the Navy really have the Gravy?
OKAY ! That's enough. 5 Minutes 14 seconds. JEZUS. And you haven't yet mentioned the most important part. Just as a battleships armor must resist shells, the boilers must resist pressure. A continuous envelope of effective steam containment is required if one is to apply steam power to the ocean. A single crack is a complete disaster. (Ka-BOOM) Unlike a diesel motor, which simply stops. Did I mention that people tend to shoot at battleships, and their engines ? With big guns...
Whoa, slow down, big boy! I didn't need to mention what you feel is the most important part in this video because I have already produced one that discusses it in detail. You can find it by using the link at the bottom of this reply. It describes how the steam system on Battleship Texas was configured for battle and damage control measures used if it was damaged. By the way, it is fortunate that "single cracks" in a boiler or steam system pretty much never results in an explosion or few steam driven ships would live their intended life expectancy. th-cam.com/video/Isw7eyDW_T0/w-d-xo.html
[~8:45] Wait... whut? Silly me. Here I was thinking the whole point of this rig was to "heat water". Now you're telling me we've got to... heat the water... *before* we heat the water? Oof. No, seriously, I would hope there was some way to do this pre-heating of the intake water, from some of the waste heat sourced somewhere else on the main boilers. If they had to use an entirely separate water-heater unit to do this pre-heating, I'd be very disappointed.
Don't be upset. Preheating the water was simple and didn't cost them anything energy wise to do it. Boiler feed water was produced in the engine room main condensers that took waste steam from the engines and other equipment and turned it back into water. The output water was pumped through heaters, that used exhaust steam on its way from the engines to the condensers, to heat the water. So, the act of preheating the water with waste steam actually helped system efficiency by recovering some of the heat that would otherwise be lost in the condenser and putting it back into the system. As I said in the video, it not only lessened the amount of work for the boilers, it also reduced the stress of cold water hitting very hot metal boiler components as it was pumped into the boilers.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 I do appreciate that this vid was only supposed to be about the guts of the main boilers themselves, not their subsidiary connected components in the overall system. And I hope you don't mind my attempt at a bit of gentle snark, which is meant more as self-deprecation of my own ignorance of these systems, than any real critique of your presentation (let alone the validity of the original design!). If I had thought about it some more (or, God forbid, studied up a bit on marine steam-propulsion generally! I mean, FFS! I did a stint assisting with the "driving" of a "steam-powered" capital warship myself, once upon a time...) I'd have been more than halfway there on figuring out that efficient pre-heating of some intake water could be done nearby, without needing to be built directly onto the body of the boiler itself. But in any case, thank you kindly for this particular explanation, and more generally for the deep-dive education you're doing here, which I have only just today discovered. As such, I have only just now subscribed.
Coal is "romantic" for museum ships. Me and others have to refuel coal for a small steam tug next saturday. Nobody likes it. Close ebverything even the bridge house and the toilet, even block the doors with tape! Then comes the big bag with -hopefully - good coal, at 700 eus per metric ton. Stupid nasty coal dust. The shower in the evening is the best....
I didn't mention it due to trying to keep video length manageable, but cleaning up after coaling could take as long or longer than the actual refueling process. While I have never seen a description of what was done to limit coal dust intrusion below deck on Texas, I imagine they went to some pretty serious effort to keep it out. Btw, I have always liked the amusing and ironic name of "field day" for the cleaning process
how did they seal the boiler tube seams up without welding after they were rolled..Brazing? I know they use to hammar forge pipe..Amazing what they had to learn to do..
I do not know the details on how boiler tubes were fabricated, but a 1919 book on boiler construction said there were three types commonly used. The most popular was lap welded steel, due to low cost. There was also hot rolled seamless steel and cold drawn seamless steel. You can find the book in the following link. books.google.com/books?id=1U0iAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Steam+Boilers+1919&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjBmoqHsb2GAxUn48kDHbezBDwQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=Steam%20Boilers%201919&f=false
My great great grandpa was the chief water tender on the USS Rochester ACR 2. It originally was the USS New York then became the USS Saratoga. It was the same class as the USS Maine.
As a former Navy Boiler Technician I salute you sir, excellent video!
Thank you very much, that is very high praise!
the Titanic was also equipped with triple expansion engines similar to those on Texas
I was one too..
@@Vigilance108 They were both vertical, four cylinder, triple expansion engines, but that's about it.
No other museum ship has a resource like you, Older Tom Scott. I am talking about taking us extremely deep into the interiors of Texas where nobody is allowed to go to. Thank you.
Tom is great, but also a shout-out for Ryan of USS NJ and Paul from USS Cod because they also make time for the nitty-gritty on their ships. However, as a WW1 era ship, Texas is a special breed and these video's are greatly appreciated.
@@Tuning3434 I like Ryan because he is cool and educational but his videographer/editor seems to like to shoot videos where only Ryan's whole body is in the video. His videographer doesn't let him do first person videos in the belly of the beast like Tom does in all of his videos. Tom's videos are incredibly technical, which is great for ship aficionados and especially USS Texas fans.
@@Tuning3434 Ryan is a strong second behind Tom imho
We had a dry dock tour with Tom. His knowledge is amazing.
Cool.
Absolutely incredible. This is the kind of quality content The History Channel USED TO produce. Probably the best explanation of how oil and coal boilers worked that I’ve seen. Thank you!
My father was a Navy machinist mate from 1937 - 1957. He made chief in late '44 either just before or just after his participation in the Battle of Surigao Strait where the Grand Old Ladies made scrap of two Japanese battleships. He passed in 1984 before the Internet. He would have loved videos like this.
Thank you!
Thank you, that is a very kind compliment!
In from '37 but it took til late '44 to "make chief" and he stayed in til '57? So he made "Chief Machinist Mate"? A chief is a Chief Boatswain Mate regardless of "rating". By '57 he should have been a Master Chief at least.
@@deeremeyer1749 there was no senior chief or master chief _until_ the year he retired, 1957. He was a push-button senior chief if he had stayed 2 more years.
They used to call me AT1 when I was in the Navy and "A chief is a Chief Boatswain Mate regardless of 'rating'." makes no sense to me. Are you American?
@@deeremeyer1749 Before June 1 1958 the ranks of E 8 [SC ] and E 9 [ MC ] didn't exist .
Now that Red Shirt Tom Scott has "retired", you're now THE Tom Scott !!!
My step grandfather was a fireman on the USS Arkansas in 1920 to 1922.
One of my favorite TH-camrs talking about one of my favorite topics!
I’d love to work feeding a coal fired boiler on a ship for an ocean crossing. I’d never complain about my actual job again!
Thank you! Working as a stoker in order to better appreciate your job is like eating a live frog every morning. You won't have to face anything worse the rest of the day!
Oh a Tom Scott new video... you know you're gonna get schooled !! Thanks for this great historical info Sir !
That, Sir was a fantastic, informative and historic explanation of how coal burners worked and the transition to oil fired boilers. THANK YOU!
Very Kool! I was a BT on an oiler in the late sixties. I hated re-bricking.
I am very happy that I never had to do that! Of course, you were either working with 600 or 1200 lb. boilers, so I imagine that you more easily risked spalling from heating it too fast. I suspect you could also have erosion from burner flame impinging on the brick. Both were fairly easy to avoid on the old 300 lb. systems.
when my dad got to Norfolk in spring of 51 as an unassigned Seaman deuce, he was assigned to the fire rooms on his DE and he and another apprentice spent 7 weeks hauling brick and cement up and over the rail. he then became a BT3 and ran #1 fire room on an APD and just before getting out in jan 55, he ran all the fire rooms on the AGC (command and control ship) he was assigned to. he had a 2nd class that was pretty useless i guess hence why the Chief put him in charge...
I live about five miles from Lukens steel, they were one of the few foundries in the world that made boiler plate in the early days of boilers.
At the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, they set up the world's largest boiler house. An immense row of boilers with a viewing gallery. The entire fair was fueled with oil supplied by the Standard Oil Company through a 40 mile pipeline to a fuel depot on the edge of the fairgrounds, then two pumps supplied a standpipe to the boiler house. The boiler attendants wore starched white uniforms.
Some insane demonstrations used to go down at the World’s Fair. Can you imagine being a regular citizen and seeing such a display for the first time?!?!
@@cruisinguy6024 That was the fair where most people saw electric light for the first time. Westinghouse alone set up like 15 engines generating electricity from all the steam. An artist created an illustration of the 2,000 h.p. Allis-Corliss engine with tandem belts driving two Tesla-Westinghouse two-phase generators. It was quite the show.
@@rtqiiI just can't even imagine what it must have been like to attend one from the later 1800s up to 1940 or so. The technology introduced was unheard of and these events lasted *half a year* to showcase truly groundbreaking human development. I just can't imagine what it must have been like to experience electricity for the first time, for example.
@@cruisinguy6024 Tesla had his own exhibit at the fair, and a switchboard with 500 h.p. two-phase alternating current on tap. He demonstrated a device called "Tesla's Egg of Columbus" which caused wireless motor armatures: discs, cylinders, and egg geometries to spin anywhere in the hall. I find records of similar devices, but none that were ever demonstrated at that power level, or reported those type effects.
Very educational. I always assumed the coal fired boilers were set up like a steam locomotive. Very interesting to see the huge difference between the two.
I’m so happy to have met you when I was leaving my dry dock tour this past January!
Superbly well done explanation of the Babcock & Wilcox boilers. I worked on coalfired electrical generating stations, and Babcock & Wilcox is legendary in that business. I also worked in semiconductor fabrication too. Solar is not nearly as clean as advertised. The silicon is etched with some nasty acids that produce gas that is 17,540x worse than CO2.
Excellent presentation and well researched. I am fascinated by the manual steam drum water level controls. I can only imagine the challenge of controlling the steam drum water level in a heavy sea! A coworker of mine once served on a WWII era destroyer. This was in the early 1970's. According to him, his duty station assignment was to maintain the steam drum water level by monitoring the level gauge and adjusting the manual feed water valve as required. I'm sure one of your viewers might have insight into this process.
my dad was a BT3 and he had water tenders on his DE and APD 51-55. i guess at that time, it was a separate rating
Go to Google Books and enter "Pointers on Boiler Operation". The top hit should be a 1944 U.S. Navy steam manual. It was Not easy! It didn't take much to destroy boiler tubes and make it a trip to a shipyard for very expensive repairs.
I work with more modern water-tube and fire-tube boilers and I love the history behind steam generation.. such a good video. All the right info without going through too much.
Steam power is fascinating. Not many people realize that most power generation still operates on steam. Fuel sources vary but it all involves generating steam to spin turbines.
They don't make people like they did then. Such hard workers. Great video as always Tom!
Thanks 👍
Thanks for that Mr Scott.
Did you know that water tube boilers of the three drum variety were tried on locomotives? They were not successful. Apart from the use of coal as fuel, long thin shapes do,not make,for efficient three drum boilers. Plus the constant vibration of a reciprocating locomotive literally shook them to pieces.
Drachinefel has a great in-depth guide on the history of naval warship boilers.
Superb content as always Tom. The deeper the dive, the better! 👍
As a chief engineer of steamships I commend you for your excellent narration. You set a standard that is far beyond that exhibited by other historical ship sites.
Thank you, that is very high praise!
Thanks - good to see you back!
Brilliantly written and narrated. TY.
Now if this ever comes up in a pub quiz… I’ll have forgotten
Don’t fret it, you were one hell of a third base man!
Very informative and interesting. I had assumed that coal was entirely synonymous with fire tube boilers, and oil with water tube. Those kinds of intermediary technologies are often the best illustrations of the iterative nature of design. It is great to see somebody go in depth on these engineering topics, especially on such a fascinating vessel whose service spanned a period of such rapid and unprecedented advancement and change. While obviously important, all the flashy guns and armor tend to steal the thunder of the systems that allowed the ship to sail and the men to be fed and watered.
The designs were not fixed upon whether they are coal or oil fired. As shown in the video, both coal and oil fired boilers used on Texas were small water tube designs. Small, water filled tube designs started coming into common use as they matured in the late 1890's and almost all were coal fired. The design only became associated with oil once it became available in needed quantities world wide in the 1910's. That led to an incorrect appearance that oil was used with small tube, and coal with fire fire tube boilers. There are applications where oil fire tube designs have significant advantages over small water tubes, but I didn't discuss them because they lay outside of power for warships. They continued to be used where the goal is to provide a constant level of steam using less than perfect water, and that didn't normally see sudden changes in demand, like steam boilers for cruise ships, and heating buildings or providing power for industrial plants.
my Great Uncle was Chas. J. Babcock. He would approve of this vidya.
Thanks! He was certainly part of a great company!
my dad was a Boiler Technician 3rd class 1951-1955 on first DE-698 USS Raby then APD-106 USS Walter B. Cobb. he spent about a month or so (maybe less) on the AGC-8 USS Mt. Olympus before being discharged. he enjoyed his time in the navy and as a 3rd class was in charge of his fire room on the Cobb and then in charge of all the fire rooms on the Mt. Olympus because he was that good at his job, while a 2nd class had to do as he directed
Fantastic video! Thank you for enlightening us. Amazing how Texas could get power from the dirtiest and lowest quality of coal.
Having flashbacks to Marine Engineering Fundamentals MUG year at the maritime academy…
Very informative….I always knew you were full of hot air…..
OUCH!!!
TH-cam video: Picard Facepalm
Thanks! I really enjoyed your video!
Fantastic. THANK YOU
Отличный ролик, подробный
Спасибо!
Excellent presentation of a very interesting subject. Thanks a lot , Colin UK
I was a Boiler tender on board the USS Benjamin Stoddert DDG 22 ,forward fire room it was hot as hale.😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😊
I can see why the galley crew would not have to shovel coal but the band? What makes them so special?!
They played continuously while coaling to help keep up the morale of those doing this backbreaking and despised but required task.
IF you ever spent a day shoveling out a barn you would understand. Or all day shoveling snow, gravel,dirt ect.
In WWI my father was on large coal burning auxiliaries. A destroyer tender and a troop transport. Coaling was all hands. They use to coat their bodies with oil or a jelly like lubricant to fill their pores to keep coal out and make later washing up easier. Coal was dumped on deck by conveyors from coaling ships and then shoveled into buckets or wheelbarrows. Then moved along deck to the chutes to the coal bunkers. The pictures he had show him and his mates covered with coal dust looking like a minstrel show. In those days few ships had evaporators to make fresh water, so washing was in salt water and then a fresh water rinse. On one ship sailors got 1 gallon of fresh water a day. First you washed yourself and then you washed your clothes. They hung their clothes on the lifelines or uptakes to dry. When I went thru navy boot camp in the mid 1960s, we had to hand wash our clothes for the first half.
Nice hull design and strong steel
Great video. Really great explanation. I have never understood why they didn’t have the water in the big space and route the steam through the pipes. Works very well on British Steam trains of the same era. Keep them coming.
As a former Merchant Seaman THANK YOU great job. Sadly most steam ships are gone and port time is nill , but a exhalent look back. 😎
Thank you! I've served as Machinist Mate aboard nuclear and oil fired ships. I always said that the Boiler Techs were the only people on the ship that MMs could feel sorry for. Seems it was even more true in coal fired days.
Nice video. I am on shift taking care of the Powerhouse for a hospital right now. I enjoy being a Watertender and always have even when handling coal and Bunker C Oil fired boilers. I was Chief Engineer in a Powerhouse with 4 1600bhp Babcock and Wilcox Sterling pattern boilers that were 4 stories high. I am very familiar with everything in the video
That is high praise, I am glad you liked it. I have also produced a video on the Dyson oil fired boilers that replaced these units. If you are interested, you can go to it here. th-cam.com/video/DhmUHQ_wcvE/w-d-xo.html
I love this informative video! I've always been curious about how coal fired engines work. Great explanation and diagrams!
EXCELLENT video! Many thanks for sharing this!
my paternal grandfather was postman on HMS Powerful - they absolutely hated coaling ship!!! 😊😊😊
Excellent information.
I love these technology videos!
Does any video exist of the engines in action?
Not that I am aware of.
12:15 is that what Parker was referring to in A Christmas Story?
Thank you 👍👍😊😊
Fantastic explanation. I support the Texas rebuild and have memorabilia eg pieces of the hull etc here in Australia. Why? Because my grandkids are Texans
Wow super interesting thanks
Oh that was fantastic!
awesome video, thank you
Thank you for a fascinating history and set of photographs. It's interesting that the boilers on the Liberty Ship-class cargo vessels of WWII were very similar, except for use of residual fuel oil instead of coal, to the original boilers on the Texas.
The Dyson boilers installed on Texas in 1925 burned residual oil, with one distinction. Except for a handful of emergency tanks in the inner bottom, none of her 92 tanks were heated. For that reason, she and most U.S. ships burned Navy Special Fuel Oil that was Bunker C diluted with a distillate (usually diesel) to improve viscosity. From what I read, that was the fuel of choice until the 1970's.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 Fuel oil tanks on Liberty ships were heated and I believe there were two sets of inline heaters on the engine room oil lines. If I remember correctly, the BunkerC fuel they were designed to burn had to be heated to about 110 degrees F to flow through the lines, filters and pumps and 180 degrees F to atomize properly in the burners. Steam atomizers were not used. I was an engine room volunteer on the operating museum ship, the Liberty ship SS JOHN W BROWN. Early in the ship’s reactivation, the ship’s fuel oil tanks in the double bottom had been cleaned by hand (which must have been a truly horrible job) and filled with water and rust inhibitor. The ship’s fuel was now ucarried in what had originally been a cargo oil tank in no. 4 hold. To avoid having to heat the fuel, we used no.2 fuel oil (home heating oil).
Something I've never seen properly answered: Why did water tube boilers never take off in rail use? They were attempted a few times, but never became too popular. Was it a maintenance thing? The need to use dirtier water? Was the volume of water that they held useful as a 'battery', to meet brief heavy demands beyond the ability of the stoker?
Great video. Thanks!
That's better answered by a locomotive person. My best estimate is that at the least, fire tube boilers are much more forgiving. As you said, they can tolerate dirty water better. While they don't respond well to sudden, large changes in load, I don't think that is usually an issue with trains. Its large mass of heated water will likely hold up better to over an under fueling it. I suspect it would also be easier to open up the smoke box at the front of the locomotive, and brush and blow out the fire tubes than it would be to clean the outside of tubes in a water tube boiler. So, while fire tube boilers weren't the answer for warships where weight and ability to respond to sudden, large changes in load, they worked well for trains.
I believe two main reasons: first, a condenser is impractical on a locomotive, so the water is used once then discarded. Thus the quantities of water needed are huge and it inevitably has dissolved solids, so even with additives scale accumulation is rapid due to the smaller evaporative area and lack of a place from which sludge could be "blown down". Also the shape of a water-tube boiler can't be effectively morphed into a long, narrow horizontal design. There were likely others...
I believe it had a lot to do with the ability to use the water in the boiler as a “battery”. Water tube boilers don’t have very much water in them, so they work best in applications where they will spend a lot of time operating in steady-state conditions. Trains do a lot of stopping and starting and have constantly changing demand for steam. The large mass of water in a fire-tube boiler helped smooth out those transitions and avoid significant changes in water level in the boiler.
@@kc4cvh... and that's the difference between someone who has specific knowledge and me, who was tossing out guesses!
3:11 - The Titanic also had five single-ended boilers too just forward of the engine-room.
Very informative.
замечательная история . Техас- корабль-музей
Before we shit all over coal maybe go read some good books on modern coal boilers. That is still a fantastically well done analysis and breakdown of the boilers! Fluidized beds can insure an efficient and almost total burn of the fuel. Babcock and Wilcox was one of the best ever in coalfired boiler design. Coal can also be turned into lighting & heating gas, gasoline and oil too. Gilsonite asphalt was refined into 115-145 tetra ethyl lead aviation gas to help win WWII with air power. It was also refined into heavy feedstocks kerosene, light gases and everything in between.
I figured someone would be upset about my criticism of coal, but I hoped they would realize that it is limited to its use in ships prior to the introduction of fuel oil. Oh, well. I am reasonably aware of what can be done with coal these days, including fluidized beds, etc. However, that has nothing to do with this video, which is limited to early 20th century marine coal fired boilers. Everything I said was true within that context and I felt no obligation to explain 100 years of evolution that has occurred since their use. The fact is that back then, coal was filthy, and difficult to handle and burn in a ship. Until fuel oil came along that was a clearly superior marine fuel in every way, they simply had no other choice. I also apparently failed to get across to you that the video is practically a love letter to the terrific Babcock and Wilcox design that was efficient, reliable and got the most out of what was a very dirty and highly variable source of energy.
Excellent!!
informative as always!
Just out of curiosity, is there a possibility of accessing the main gun directors in the main mast? I would love to see a video on the rangefinders.
No, the gun directors were removed by the Navy before the ship was donated to the State of Texas. Also removed were the Ford Mk 1 range keepers in main battery plotting room. The only sighting devices left on board are the two 20' base range finders in turrets 2 and 4.
Excellent presentation, thank you, a couple of points, when you say scuppers, I think you mean bunker lids / doors , scuppers are for allowing water to escape over the side . an very important part of using coal firing , particularly on warships was the use of forced draft as apposed to natural draft , this allowed a doubling of coal burnt per unit of area on the grate , ie greatly increasing the power from the boiler without increasing its size/ weight .
Thanks, I am aware of the difference between scuttles and scuppers; that is one of my more embarrassing screw ups. Even though I didn't mention it, I am aware of the benefits of forced draft. Both the coal fired and oil fired boilers used on Texas were designed to take advantage of it. varying the blower speed, thus the pressure in the room, was how they fine tuned fuel:air ratio with the later Dyson boilers.
@@tomscotttheolderone364titanic also used forced air to pressure the boiler room thus increasing air flow and making the working conditions less dusty.
@@rdallas81 I suspect that 99.9% of the reason for forced draft was to increase boiler firing rate.
As a man, a thing of retired beauty!
Uh, Sir, those are not scuppers, they are scuttles. Scuppers drain water from the deck. Scuttles lead from the deck to the fuel bunkers.
You know what, YOU ARE RIGHT!!! I know better and simply screwed up!
I could smell and taste coal watching this, and im still in my 50s.
Wonderful video, I learned a lot! One question: when they switched to oil fired boilers, were they able to increase the steam pressure and the power of the engines? Or did the engines and the plumbing limit them to the same steam pressure?
Steam pressure remained the same. First, US. Navy boilers produced a maximum pressure of 300psi due to the limits of riveted construction. It wasn't until they approved welding for pressure vessels in the 1930's that pressure increased to 600psi. Even if they could have gone higher, engines, auxiliary equipment and pipes were all designed for 295lb. steam, so that also created a limit. However, the change to oil was still very desirable. There were not only the obvious things like a cleaner ship, fast refueling, more storage and smaller boiler room crew sizes, there were other major dividends. The ship's range practically doubled, and the six oil fired boilers that took the place of fourteen coal fired units produced more steam. That not only reduced fluctuations as big loads were added or subtracted, it provided a safety marge if a boiler was lost or a major steam line ruptured. The placement of fuel oil tanks along the inside of the ship's hull also greatly increased torpedo protection.
Oh ya baby! Coal!
Must have been an unhealty job.
Best content for after 5 hours of dancing to techno music
The size of a medium size house. Americans use everything but the metric system.
I’m a former Air Force bandsman and I’d love to know if anyone knows why Texas’ band was exempt from the coal party.
Believe it or not, they provided entertainment!
Who needs Spotify when you have a Iive concert?
Mr. Scott, I have a few questions for you about the gun firing lock systems, how can I get a hold of you sir?
The same Mk. XIV, Mod. 1 firing lock was used on both the 14" and 5" guns on Texas, and was a combination percussion and electric firing lock. You can find some good illustrations and description of its operation by using Google Books and looking for "Naval Ordnance and Gunnery 1944". You can also use the following link where I give a description of its operation along with color graphics of the lock and how the components move: th-cam.com/video/odM1htLyDoM/w-d-xo.html
@@tomscotttheolderone364 thank you sir. But I was hoping to chat with you about a project I am working on that you may have insight on
I am currently working on a 1940s 8" mark 12 test asset and was looking for insight on operations and maintenance procedures
@@voodochild5 I assume that you are referring to the 8"/55cal., Mk 12 gun. I can only tell you that while they share the same primer and firing lock, they have nothing else in common with the guns on Texas. What I know regarding operations and maintenance simply doesn't apply to your gun.
I don't know what level of research you have attempted, but I suggest starting at the NAVWEAPS website that has a good description of the gun and also a bibliography at the end of the listing that would serve as a good start for searches.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 yes sir, I have done some preliminary research on navweaps, was just hoping to bounce some ideas on maintenance of this welin breech with you as we have done an initial teardown and lube, but plan to utilize this gun for a good long while for test firing.
I guess it all boils down to boiling water 😮
That filthy fuel got you where you are today
That is true, then something better came along and it was time to change.
Enterprise should have been preserved
Black Lung poor guys.
What happened to “clean coal”?
That's an issue for someone else to address.
Great info & pictures. I highly recommend not speed reading a script so u can leave pics up longer......will make for a much better presentation. Take my word for it; I've been a historian for 59 years.
I understand what you are saying. However, I have some experience with these things also, plus the ability to review analytics for the videos. I concluded a while back that what I am doing seems to provide the best balance.
I'll do whatever it takes to save Texas
Buy merch from their online store!
already did and I have a Come and Save It flag on my wall
The boom in the oil industry was related to the millions of autos which took to the road in the years before and after The Great War. Refiners found themselves with increasing quantities of useless gooey glop which they dubbed "residual oil" until they had brilliant idea: rather than dump it in the river, we'll sell it to the Navy! Once we tell the admirals no big columns of smoke which may be seen a hundred miles away we'll have them on board, then we can sell it to the merchant fleet...
Well, not really. The U.S. and Great Britain, to name two countries, worked hard on oil as a means of improving ship power and more importantly, solve several major problems associated with transporting coal and refueling. There is plenty of documentation from the 1890's and later that show the Navy was working hard at research and development of oil fired boilers, and creating an oil infrastructure, including their own oil leases. For Great Britain, they knew that oil was the future and the need for it to fuel their army and navy was a major motivating force behind their cooperation with the Dutch and the creation of Shell Oil.
Actually, the gasoline was the waste product, which is why autos used it. There was no other use for it and it was a good fit for the more primitive Otto cycle used by automobiles, which is incapable of using more stable fuels. The residual oils are a pretty useful fuel and their low flashpoint makes them much safer than volatile stuff like gasoline. They’re not called residuals because they were a leftovers waste product, they’re called residuals because they’re what remains after the volatiles have been distilled out of the crude oil.
@6:37 unexpected Sabaton
I'm confused from the word go
Yah I found it funny ... I went into the navy summer 1980 and then went to welders schools before the fleet... AND I was in San Diego 32nd street naval base after work I'd go back to the Barracks before dinner a bunch of us would be I'm the tv lounge and we'd watch Benny hill and a few other shows but they'd be alot of bs back in forth and me and afew old sailors I'm mean OLDER LIKE 55-60 THEY'D been in since before Korean War and they had all the sea stories you'd ever want one day 3 started arguing about which ship they'd been on was faster and some how it's switched to fuel (they where mm and boilermen) and they as we got going to chow all agreed that the old "heavy bunker oil" was the best fuel for boilers ever but it was filthy as hell and you could see the black smoke over the horizon..... 😂😂😂😂
Wow! Coal fired stuff sucked badly. I cant imagine loading the hold with coal, and then living in it for a extended period of time. Jeezz, black lung anyone. Begs the question, does the Navy really have the Gravy?
OKAY ! That's enough. 5 Minutes 14 seconds. JEZUS. And you haven't yet mentioned the most important part. Just as a battleships armor must resist shells, the boilers must resist pressure. A continuous envelope of effective steam containment is required if one is to apply steam power to the ocean. A single crack is a complete disaster. (Ka-BOOM) Unlike a diesel motor, which simply stops. Did I mention that people tend to shoot at battleships, and their engines ? With big guns...
Whoa, slow down, big boy! I didn't need to mention what you feel is the most important part in this video because I have already produced one that discusses it in detail. You can find it by using the link at the bottom of this reply. It describes how the steam system on Battleship Texas was configured for battle and damage control measures used if it was damaged. By the way, it is fortunate that "single cracks" in a boiler or steam system pretty much never results in an explosion or few steam driven ships would live their intended life expectancy. th-cam.com/video/Isw7eyDW_T0/w-d-xo.html
They should make Bowie knives from the steel. Double down on the Texas.
There is an artisan group made up of skilled metalworkers who are creating knives and other custom collectables that will be sold at auction.
[~8:45]
Wait... whut? Silly me. Here I was thinking the whole point of this rig was to "heat water". Now you're telling me we've got to... heat the water... *before* we heat the water? Oof.
No, seriously, I would hope there was some way to do this pre-heating of the intake water, from some of the waste heat sourced somewhere else on the main boilers. If they had to use an entirely separate water-heater unit to do this pre-heating, I'd be very disappointed.
Don't be upset. Preheating the water was simple and didn't cost them anything energy wise to do it. Boiler feed water was produced in the engine room main condensers that took waste steam from the engines and other equipment and turned it back into water. The output water was pumped through heaters, that used exhaust steam on its way from the engines to the condensers, to heat the water. So, the act of preheating the water with waste steam actually helped system efficiency by recovering some of the heat that would otherwise be lost in the condenser and putting it back into the system. As I said in the video, it not only lessened the amount of work for the boilers, it also reduced the stress of cold water hitting very hot metal boiler components as it was pumped into the boilers.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 I do appreciate that this vid was only supposed to be about the guts of the main boilers themselves, not their subsidiary connected components in the overall system. And I hope you don't mind my attempt at a bit of gentle snark, which is meant more as self-deprecation of my own ignorance of these systems, than any real critique of your presentation (let alone the validity of the original design!).
If I had thought about it some more (or, God forbid, studied up a bit on marine steam-propulsion generally! I mean, FFS! I did a stint assisting with the "driving" of a "steam-powered" capital warship myself, once upon a time...) I'd have been more than halfway there on figuring out that efficient pre-heating of some intake water could be done nearby, without needing to be built directly onto the body of the boiler itself. But in any case, thank you kindly for this particular explanation, and more generally for the deep-dive education you're doing here, which I have only just today discovered. As such, I have only just now subscribed.
Coal is "romantic" for museum ships. Me and others have to refuel coal for a small steam tug next saturday. Nobody likes it. Close ebverything even the bridge house and the toilet, even block the doors with tape! Then comes the big bag with -hopefully - good coal, at 700 eus per metric ton. Stupid nasty coal dust. The shower in the evening is the best....
I didn't mention it due to trying to keep video length manageable, but cleaning up after coaling could take as long or longer than the actual refueling process. While I have never seen a description of what was done to limit coal dust intrusion below deck on Texas, I imagine they went to some pretty serious effort to keep it out. Btw, I have always liked the amusing and ironic name of "field day" for the cleaning process
👍👍👍👍👍
Clickbait: German stokers on an US battleship?
Certain liberties were taken. It is very difficult to find 100+ year old photos of specific actions.
sorry my money is in ukraine .
and 10% for the big guy of course .
Cool uhhh i ment hot video ❤😂
how did they seal the boiler tube seams up without welding after they were rolled..Brazing? I know they use to hammar forge pipe..Amazing what they had to learn to do..
I do not know the details on how boiler tubes were fabricated, but a 1919 book on boiler construction said there were three types commonly used. The most popular was lap welded steel, due to low cost. There was also hot rolled seamless steel and cold drawn seamless steel. You can find the book in the following link. books.google.com/books?id=1U0iAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Steam+Boilers+1919&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjBmoqHsb2GAxUn48kDHbezBDwQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=Steam%20Boilers%201919&f=false
My great great grandpa was the chief water tender on the USS Rochester ACR 2. It originally was the USS New York then became the USS Saratoga. It was the same class as the USS Maine.
I can see why the galley crew would not have to shovel coal but the band? What makes them so special?!
Band probably played music for the crew shoveling the coal