WWII hand-powered lathe from Liberty Ship - photo

[Frank S]

Liberty ships as with nearly all military navel vessels larger than landing craft possessed a full complement machine shop any hand operated tools such as the Paxton Mitchel would have been used for special purposes like boring out re-poured Babbitt bearing shells or making wooden bearings. The ads and other places mention the Paxton Mitchel as specifically having a packing bore chuck, which could have meant a multitude of things. We most commonly associate the term packing with materials used in a stuffing box around the propeller shaft but that would have probably been flax rope but there were stuffing boxes Babbitt bearings and wooden bearings used all over the vessels so this may have been used for a multitude of small tasks which did not warrant using the powered machines.