Portholes

[DuckyParticipant @ducky]

Can’t beat a good jig Bob, works everytime

I don’t suppose there were too many of these signs about in Brunel’s time,so plenty of people about like me deaf !! through industrial practices like rivetting, how many rivets were put into Great Eastern ???

No 1

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Hello Peter

Is that how you damaged your hearing?…………Industrial noise?………….I`m very sorry about that Peter!

It does say on the GE website page how many rivels…….it was several million!

The plates were 7/8 ths thick. wrought iron……….steel wasn`t invented in those days……So how did they drill the holes?………..What type of machine?………….What an achievement!

Bob the Overawed

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hi Bob

In answer to your question the holes were punched out using a huge steam hammer probably a 70ton model,

Steel had been  invented in those days but was unavailable in commercial ammounts as they had not yet invented the blast furnace the steel that they did make was called crucible steel which was very expensive and was used for the hard edges on machine tools.

The Great Eastern at its time was at the cutting edge of industrial knowlage and some of the designs and construction processes were not repeated until the building of the Olympic, Titanic and Britanic in the early 20th century.

Your model is coming on at a fantastic rate of knots I am really looking forward to the launching.

All the best Bob

Paul

[DuckyParticipant @ducky]

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