Visited the Mare Island dry docks and noticed something wild about the old rivet patterns

I was over at the old Mare Island Naval Shipyard last weekend just poking around the historic dry docks, and I swear every single rivet line on those boilers from the 1940s is still perfectly straight. You can tell the guys who did that work took real pride in it, no slop or gaps anywhere. Makes me wonder, do any of you still run into jobs where the old hand-riveted work holds up better than what we weld today?

2 comments

2 Comments

ivan21126d ago

Did you catch that documentary where they interviewed the old riveters from the 40s?

sean_foster5226d ago

Oh man, riveters. My grandpa actually worked in a shipyard during the war doing that exact job. If you ever watch those interviews, pay close attention to their hands. Those guys had wrists like tree trunks from swinging those heavy rivet guns all day. One piece of advice I'd give anyone who gets the chance to talk to those old timers - ask them about the noise. Nobody ever mentions how they dealt with that constant deafening racket for eight hours straight. They'd probably just say you got used to it, but there's a reason most of them were half deaf by the time they were 40.