The Boardman Apprentice Shop, under which name New Haven, Conn.,
operates a Trade School, is doing its share toward meeting the
shortage of skilled and semi-skilled help and plans are being made to
further this work.
The “Shop” teaches many trades under actual trade conditions, but
as the most pressing need is for machine workers this trade only
will be considered in this article even to the exclusion of the
drafting department, second in importance, and results to the machine
department.
Primarily this Trade School is operated to teach boys, but the
evening continuation classes have grown in importance year by year
until they have reached the present high standard of efficiency.
The machine department trains fifty boys in the day course and under
normal conditions the boy graduates after 4,800 hours of study,
seventy-five per cent. being trade practice and twenty-five per cent.
academic study. At present many boys leave before the completion
of their course to enter local munition factories. These boys are
in great demand and even after a few months of training are found
extremely useful in those factories.
The boys who complete their studies and receive their diplomas are
largely sought for tool room work.
Thus the school is supplying more trained hands than the number of
boys and length of course would indicate and that is but part of the
story. These boys work eight hours a day, forty-four hours a week,
fifty weeks a year, and produce real machinery practically all of
which goes into the munition plants.
One lot of forty-five Horizontal Tappers was built and boxed and
ready for shipment to Glasgow for use on British munitions long
before cargo space was available.
The boys build two sizes of screw slotting machines, two sizes of
horizontal tapping machines, lathes, slide rests, drill press vises
and hundreds of small cutters.
They have built and shipped about six hundred machines, not including
slide rests and vises.
The screw slotters and tapping machines are of a type in great demand
for munition factories, being particularly serviceable for use on
fuse parts, small arms and government hardware.
Thus, the school, while following its basic plan, is supplying the
country’s vital needs in training boys and at the same time making an
essential product.
In addition, further use of the equipment is secured by the operation
of night continuation classes for twenty-five weeks in the year. The
classes are operated six nights per week and Saturday afternoon with
instructors taken from the local factories under one of the regular
day force.
Men in all stages of experience, ambitious apprentices, unskilled
clerks, drivers, porters, etc., who wish to enter the local munition
factories come to these classes.
As an instance of extremes we may take the case of a painter of sixty
who entered the Marlin Rockwell Corporation on machine work after two
seasons of study; and the case of an experienced toolmaker taking
advantage of the equipment to learn some new operations so as to fit
himself for a higher grade of work. Both men made good. Machinists
take the continuation course so that they may qualify as toolmakers.
Four classes of fifty men—making a total of two hundred men—are
taught in the night classes.
The results have been so satisfactory that these classes will be
continued and if the demand warrants women will be given instruction
upon specified evenings. The school management believes that the
day is coming when women will receive a far greater share of trade
instruction.
Plans are in operation to increase the efficiency of the school
by teaching special classes. For instance, a class in the use of
measuring instruments and gauges would prove valuable and reduce, in
a great measure, the time taken in training the unskilled men and
women taking up factory work. Large numbers can be handled in such
courses.
The school is prepared to take crippled and disabled resident
soldiers in any of its trade courses, night or day, when the demand
comes.
Since this article was prepared, orders for fifty No. 1 screw
slotters and twelve No. 1 vertical tapping machines have been booked
at this school.
This order of twelve tapping machines will go directly into an
optical factory for use on government supplies.
FRANK R. LAWRENCE,
_Acting Director_.
September 16, 1918.
[Illustration: BOARDMAN APPRENTICE SCHOOL, NEW HAVEN.
Milling the “tailstock” on a motor-driven vertical milling machine. A
natural mechanic (one out of every fifteen that apply can be classed
as such), 14 years old. Has been an apprentice about four months. Is
doing work usually done by boys of eighteen months’ experience.]
[Illustration: BOARDMAN APPRENTICE SCHOOL, NEW HAVEN.
Boring is an advanced branch of the machine trade, and requires great
skill to successfully complete an accurate piece of work.
A boy must complete 4,000 hours before he is advanced to this
operation, and not then unless we consider him competent to do this
accurate work.
The “head” and “tail” of this machine must “line” to .001 of an inch
in 18 inches, and therefore must be bored until all the “spring” is
out of the boring bar.
This boy, age 15, is making a measurement with a spring caliper to
ascertain proper size before reaming.]
[Illustration: BOARDMAN APPRENTICE SCHOOL, NEW HAVEN.
Scraping beds—a difficult art. Notice the standard Brown & Sharpe
surface plate at the left. The surface of these beds must show an 85
per cent bearing, the tailstocks scraped to fit the same. These boys
are about 14½ years old, and have served six months’ apprenticeship.]
[Illustration: BOARDMAN APPRENTICE SCHOOL, NEW HAVEN.
Planing “head.” It is one of the advanced operations and requires
much care in machining. The slot shown must be absolutely in line
with the boxes, and they are tested with an aligning bar after
planing. This boy is 16 years old, and will graduate in about two
months.]