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Allied Machine Donates Boring Tools to USS Pampanito Restoration
Wohlhaupter Tooling Helps Preserve World War II Submarine in San Francisco
Allied Machine and Engineerin, recently donated var- ious boring bars and inserts to be used with a 1954 Wohl- haupter boring head on the USS Pampanito restoration project. Pampanito, a World War II submarine located in San Francisco, opened to the public in 1982. Since then, it has been the goal of the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association to return the submarine to the condition it was in when it left Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco in 1945, representing the height of World War II submarine development.
In order to more efficiently repair and restore the sub- marine, an onsite machine shop was developed. Here, vol- unteer machinists come to the shop, which is tooled up for manual work, and repair or replicate small quantities of parts. Larger quantities of parts are often machined in CNC shops. After receiving the Wohlhaupter boring head, the museum machine shop contacted Allied Machine to see if boring bars and inserts could be donated to help further the preservation of the vessel. While the donated tools allow history to live on and fuel education, they also demonstrate that the ingenuity of boring tools still holds true today.
The donated tools will be most immediately used to bore out parts for waterproof lamp housings that are used on the submarine. These waterproof lamp housings were part of large waterproof binoculars that stayed out of the water when the submarine dove down to 300 feet. The lights enabled the crew to see the reticules or the lines that told them how wide or tall an object was or let them make calculations. Although these were missing on Pam- panito, drawings were found, which makes it possible to create replicas. In the future, the donated Wohlhaupter boring tools will also be used to machine internal grooves
in bronze bearings that are used on the submarine.
Because this is an on-going restoration, three types of
projects will continue to be seen in the machine shop:
• Repairing parts that are broken and need touched up to maintain the historic fabric.
• Developing replica parts for pieces that are missing from the submarine but are needed to better understand the functions of the vessel.
• Creating replica parts to replace original pieces from the submarine that break over time but are needed for safety.
Ultimately, though, Pampanito serves as a museum that educates visitors, provides the ability to research the history of the vessel and offers a historic artifact to preserve and re- store. Simply
stated, hav-
ing the actual
submarine
provides
many more
opportuni-
ties for edu-
cation than
a book or
oral history.
Not only has
most of the
equipment
on the sub-
marine been
functioning
at least once,
but it simply
provides a
rewarding
experience
for the machinists who work on the submarine and tackle the puzzles of where parts went or how things worked—puzzles that can only be solved with donated tooling like the Wohl- haupter boring tools. Richard Pekelney, volunteer machinist and member of the Board of Trustees shared, “We could not restore Pampanito without companies like Allied.”
To learn more about Pampanito and the museum, visit https://maritime.org/uss-pampanito/.
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