My friend Micah Shoemaker, owner of AF1 Racing (Aprilia race team) and a gifted metal fabricator himself, tells me that the complete shunning of welding was likely a corporate reaction to the unsuccessful attempt to use structural welding techniques in the rapid and cheap fabrication of “Victory” ships during World War II (the welds failed due to inadequate impurity control, due to the state of the production welding art at that point in time, and ships sank as a result). The riveting methodology was not only well proven in railway, bridge, building, and ship construction, but also softened the shock loads to the frame components, as there would be a certain amount of small scale flexing versus the harsh rigidity of a weld.
Jim G
I sailed on Victory ships during the Viet Nam war-after serving in S.E. Asia in the military. Went thru quite a few Pacicic & South China Sea typhoons, one severe enough to break up the wood lifeboats hanging on their davits. Quite a few T-2 tankers were still sailing at that time also. It is recorded that the Queen Mary, now on display in Long Beach CA., went thru an Atlantic storm so severe some of the plate glass windows of the wheel house were broken out-while steaming to Europe with a full load of troops. I would submit that these ships held up quite well & that those that did break up were more due to the severe storms they plowed straight thru in the name of war time necessity.
Some of the shipyard workers could still relate stories of seeing welding rods laid into the V-grooves as fillers & then being 'washed over' with a couple wide passes on top. For most of those weldors, it was their first job as such & the pressure to launch a ship a day was great.
I totally agree with your 'beautiful to the eye & great engineering comments, just had to add my seagoing experiences here.
Doug
