Us Navy Course

I worked with a retired Navy Machinist (E9) for many years in a prototype machine shop in the 80's and he taught me most everything I know. The guy was a genius in machining and fabrication.
 
I served on 594-class nuclear attack subs in the 70's. We too had a lathe and drill press in the Engine Room. I can't remember them actually being used, but then, I worked in the Control Room, I'm sure they were occasionally used for something. I'll ask on our "594 Tough" Facebook group, someone should know more.
Our crews had no Machinery Repairmen, but perhaps a dozen Machinist Mates (MMs) between M-Div (the nuclear powerplant machinists) and A-Gang (auxiliary machists). As may have been already mentioned, Navy MMs focus on maintenance and operation of machinery, not the machining operations involved in fabrication and repair.
Greg ex-FTG1(SS)

Saturday 5 Mar update: After asking the question on the FB group for us 594-class guys, I got several replies. Here are some of the tasks they've told me about:
  • making a shaft for a teletype machine
  • turning threads for zinc anodes
  • making a shaft for high pressure brine pump for the freshwater still
  • making a valve for use in the powerplant
  • making a shaft for the dead reckoning trace (plotting table)
  • making a gear for a sonar chart recorder display
Nobody has yet answered on the make and size of our lathes. We'll see....
 
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I'm going back a long ways, memory-wise. I seem to remember on a tour of the USS Drum, in Mobile, AL, that what that submarine called a machine shop was a passageway between a small lathe, and a small drill press. It seems like it was part of another compartment, rather than a shop. What stands out the most is even that young and small, is the little room in diesel boats
 
the old aircraft carrier decks used really good wood on the landing deck get a piece of that will make some good pen bodies bill
 
On Big John CV-67 there was a machine shop that I visited once (I was air wing, an aviation electronics technician). One day we had a part that had two broken off 1/4-28 screws we needed to be removed. Our electronics shop didn't have any way to remove them. I volunteered (should have know better NAVY = Never Again Volunteer Yourself) to try and find someone to help us. It only took me a few minutes to find the machine shop and most of the day to get the correct paper work to get the work done. It took the actual machinist about 5 minutes to do the job. IIRC he used a left hand drill bit in the Bridgeport.
 
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