As already stated, in addition to men employed in the regular yard, shop, and office trades, navy yards employ men in a number of other trades, such as those of stone and brick masons, house plumbers, stone cutters, switchmen, pavers, and upholsterers. Under ordinary conditions the demand for men in such occupations is small. Glassworkers, lens grinders, instrument makers, and other special classes of workers would only be called for in a yard where instruments were made and repaired, such as the Washington Navy Yard or the naval torpedo station at Newport, R. I.
PLAN No. 1049. INSIDE AND OUTSIDE WORK
If you are interested in securing employment in a navy yard or in taking training for a navy-yard trade, you may want to consider the condition under which you would work. You may feel that you would wish to work entirely under cover, or you may prefer to work more or less in the open air. Different navy-yard occupations vary greatly as to whether they are carried on entirely in shops, partly in shops and partly in the open air, or entirely in the open air. In some trades and occupations a man’s work is located at one definite place, and in others it may be anywhere in the yard. The following statement will give you an idea as to ordinary working conditions in a number of the more important navy-yard trades:
Inside, under the best conditions.—Such occupations as all sorts of office work, stenography, typewriting, bookkeeping, clerical work, work in the drafting room.
Inside, under good conditions.—Such occupations as machine shop, pattern shop, jointer shop, rigging loft, mold loft, power plant work, and inside jointing and finishing.
Inside, under some protection.—Such occupations as blacksmith shop, foundry work, plate-shop work, galvanizing, and frame bending.
Occupations requiring both inside and outside work.—Such occupations as boiler shop, general outside painting, outside machinist, carpenter shop, electrical work, outside rigger, pipe shop, sheet-metal shop, copper shop, and ship fitting.
Occupations carried on entirely outside.—Such operations as reaming, riveting, bolting up, chipping, and calking, ship carpentry, stone masonry, and bricklaying.
Tools and Machines Used
In the regular trades such as jointer work, sheet-metal work, coppersmithing, boiler making, pattern making, etc., the tools and machines used are practically the same as would be used in these trades anywhere. A man who had earned these trades in any good shop would have no particular trouble in working in a navy yard shop so far as tools and machines go.