Page:Popular Science December 1931.djvu/146

THE DOCTORS PROPELLERS

(Continued from page 33)

laid up because of a terrible case of "shud-

ders." Beginning with the very first voyage, the vibration had been present; and it had increased until at last the propeller bearings burned out and the engine became crippled. What was particularly puzzling about this case was the fact that there was no apparent cause for the trouble.

However, a careful examination with the pitchometer proved that not only did the blades vary considerably in pitch from each other, but that there were variations in pitch between different portions of a single blade.

With special machinery he has devel- oped, capable of exerting a pressure of more than 1,000.000 pounds, Godfrey soon smoothed out the kinks of pitch. The two wheels were replaced on the ferryboat. To the surprise of officers and crew, the boat glided off with the smooth grace of a yacht!

So impressed was the Army Quartermaster Corps with this demonstration that it soon inserted a clause in many of its contracts with propeller manufacturers that all propellers for its use must before acceptance be tested and certified by Godfrey.

Godfrey is willing to talk more about boats and propellers than about himself. Born in New Zealand, forty-seven years ago, he came to Seattle with his family when he was live. When he was in the teens he learned the intricacies of engine building.

In 1922 he became discouraged with the prospects of the engine-building business, and began turning over in his mind the possibility of entering some profession that had a bright future. Discovering nothing that suited him, he determined to create a business.

From his previous experience he knew that propellers were a fertile source of boat trouble. Godfrey felt that if he could devise an instru- ment that could, quickly and accurately, determine pitch, and machinery to correct the pitch, he would have answered a great need in the shipping world.

He studied geometry and trigonometry to enable him to make the necessary calculations. In 1923, he invented the pitchometer, and started his business of measuring propellers.

To check a propeller with the pitchometer, the propeller is first centered between two cones of steel. Bolted to the flat top surface of the upper cone projects a heavy graduated arm. Sliding on this arm is a vertical bar which has an angle-measuring device.

The checking is begun by moving the vertical bar out to, say, a ten-inch radius. The feet of the angle device are adjusted so that they simultaneously touch the surface of the propeller blade, and the angle is noted on the scale. By referring this angle and radius to a similar angle and radius on a table he has compiled, the pitch at that par- ticular point of the blade is found.

Considering that the west coast offered too small a field for his work, Godfrey came cast and set up a small shop in Brooklyn. His first Brooklyn job came from the Marine Basin Company. He saw two old forty-four-inch wheels in their yard, bent and battered apparently beyond hope. As junk they would have brought about five dollars. Godfrey begged the owner for the chance to try to fix them.

In two days Godfrey brought them back. "But I want my own wheels!" said the shipyard man.

"These are your wheels!" retorted Godfrey. It took some time to convince the man that he had not substituted new wheels.

Today, propellers find their way into his shop from a thousand individuals and ship- yards at a rate which he can hardly handle with the help of six assistants.

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