On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 13:33:18 GMT, Gene Kearns
wrote:

On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 05:16:54 GMT, "Bill McKee"
wrote:


"Gene Kearns" wrote in message
. ..

Neat stories about their construction, too, from my dad. He worked at
Newport News building them, until he was conscripted in WWII.

Liberty ships were steel, as well as the Victory ships. My dad spent the
war building them in Richmond, CA and my mom spent the time as a nurse at
the shipyard hospital. The hospital became the first Kaiser hospital. I
remember the small stamped models that we had at home. Probably worth a lot
of money now. First boat I got to pilot.


I have to assume that he saw what he saw...

Apparently, as steel became scarce they, experimented with other forms
of material. One of the stories he recounted was the, to him,
excessive number of hours spent in vibrating the mix in the mold....
sometimes two shifts. He always expected to see the hull come out with
aggregate on the bottom and sand and cement on top.... though he never
saw one come out that way.

I assume vibrating a steel ship would just be loud....

That same technique was used on Hoover Dam. When we were out there a
few years ago, one of the documentaries we saw mentioned that
sometimes whole gangs of ten/fifteen men would continuously vibrate
the cement mixture for as long as 36 hours.