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[redshift]

Originally Posted by JThiessen

That would be amazing. I cant even fathom that kind of a cut - the stress in that cutter AND the material had to be huge! Had to have been loud...
Would they have been making it out of Aluminum? Just can't imagine cutting steel like that.

It was steel, chip turned a nice blue coming off. The shaft was 3 to 4 feet diameter, and I'm pretty positive they said there were 40 foot sections, and multiple sections per screw. They showed the welders joining the sections of the hull as well, I wish I could find that, I think it may have been on TLC?

[JThiessen]

I was talking with my machinist yesterday about that, and he said he wouldnt be suprised to see that for the rough cuts. He said with the advancements in the heads, you could pretty much cut the same dia as the cutter head. He said that now with the removable bits, you could likely do more than that. Very impressive tech.