Fire at sea

[cappy]

###suppose the aluminium would be welded ...wouldnt take rivets but then on the other hand aircraft are rivetted .......suppose that was later vessels louis .....cappy

- - - Updated - - -

##richard it was the port st john he was in ..she was quite old when he was in her .....jed brown was his name from north shields a proper good skin ///cappy

[cappy]

On Palm boats the accommodation was all aluminium. On deck level where our cabins and the galley where , bars on the portholes to keep the West Coast thieves out.
For us this was good , no rust , no chipping and scraping. We never gave a thought of fire.

####just thought dont think you can weld aluminium can you ...cappy

[Ivan Cloherty]

Yes cappy you can weld aluminium, but it is a specialist job, one ship I was on had an aluminium wheelhouse riveted to the steel accommodation housing, in heavy weather the steel rivets would wear the aluminium together with corrosion and powdering causing the rivet holes to expand and the rivets come loose, not a safe feeling, spent over ten days alongside for repairs most of that waiting for a specialist welder, once the repair had been undertaken we covered the line of rivets on the bridge front with 'Ramtek' tape (anyone remember that) and then painted it in an attempt to prevent salt water getting at the rivets to try and minimise the problem.

[cappy]

thanks for that ivan ...it is interesting to know that we can still educate our selves further on this site almost daily ....regards cappy

[John F Collier]

You can also solder aluminium with the special aluminium soldering kits that are on sale. JF

[Lewis McColl]

There are several ways you can weld aluminium Gas or electric. Most common type is what they call MIG welding which stands for Metal inert Gas. The gas you use is usually Argon. You may say hang on Argon is not flamable. The gas is to protect the weld pool from the atmosphere as there are polutants in the air.
I served my time as a pipe fitter welder before I went to sea. If ever an aluminium job came in and I got it we were always given a bit of time to do a few practice runs on old bits of aluminium. Once you got into the way of it it was easy enough. My preferred method though was TIG welding which was similar to MIG main difference was with MIG you had a feeder gun that contained the filler wire, were as with TIG you actually held the filler wire in you hand. The most important thing you had to do was make sure the work piece was free from Aluminium oxide. With TIG welding you had gun type thing in your hand which had a Tungsten tip up the centre and a ceramic cone at the end , also you would have Argon gas flowing down through the gun on to the work piece. You also had a foot pedal which when pressed sent an a high frequency electric arc down the Tungsten tip. Once the arc was established you released the foot pedal and then started feeding the weld pool with filler wire. You could only weld Alloys like these using DC current. If you were weilding pipe you fitted two rubber bungs each end of the pipe. The bungs had a tube at one end feeding Argon in to the inside of the pipe and there by purging the pipe of air venting out the other end of the pipe there by creating an inert atmosphere inside the pipe an avoiding contamination of the weld.
I think I am pretty sure about what I say as I am having to cast the mind back 50 years. Obviously times will have moved on since my day but the basic principal will not have changed that much.
LNG carriers of the Moss design are usually all Aluminium and fully welded. How they make these tanks is really a fantastic piece of engineering, especially when you consider they are about 10" thick around the equator and are just sitting in the deck of the ship. When you look at an Moss type LNG carrier and those domes on deck that you see are not the actual cargo tanks that dome is to protect the tank and this space is full of dehumidfied air which over a period of time will become inert as the space has a Nitrogen filled secondary barrier space.That is basically the nuts and bolts of it. Just think of an LNG tanker as the biggest thermous flask you will ever see. LNG carriers constucted these days will be of the membrane type as they are cheaper to build than Moss ships.

[cappy]

##well lewis i will be a welder by the time i read that again ...interesting cheers mate......cappy

[happy daze john in oz]

Remember at school, just a few years ago, when our metal work teacher told us you cannot weld cast Iron. My step father as a qualified plumber and heating engineer.
Imagine the look on the teachers face when next day I showed him a book that explained how to weld cast iron using a sand bath.

Cappy, the modern day cruise ships have more sprinklers than you can poke a stick at. More 'break glass' fittings and fire hoses than you could ever imagine.

But a couple of cruises ago one guy, no doubt the worse for wear, hung his jacket on a hanger from the overhead sprinkler in his cabin. We hit a couple of rough waves that night and he got a very unexpected shower at about 0400 hours.

[Shaun Gander]

There are several ways you can weld aluminium Gas or electric. Most common type is what they call MIG welding which stands for Metal inert Gas.

I never knew that! What does TIG stand for then?

We have 4 aluminum (as the locals pronounce it!), boats all welded.

SDG

[vic mcclymont]

Fire at sea I would suggest was every seamen worst nightmare, On the clan Ranald generator fires and scavenge fires. on SA Value a turbine fire, when an oil lubrication line fractured, no serious damage.
The Good Hope Castle,suffered an engine room fire,when a lubrication line to the exhaust gas turbine caught fire. Whilst fighting the fire in the E.R. which they brought under control, the heat from the fire transferred through the E.R bulkheads and set the accommodation on fire.
Regards
Vic