How did the Victorians waterproof wooden ships? @chalkehistoryfestival

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[DJPhillthy]

The amount of labor required for EVERYTHING pre-industrial revolution is mind boggling..

[tc]

Man, I always forget the sheer amount of labor involved in even the simplest of tasks back then

[Jack-Hands]

Fun fact.

When the wreck of RMS Titanic was discovered in 1985. The researchers believed that the wood on the deck was still intact, because they could see the seams on their grainy pictures.

When further investigations were made with better equipment they discovered it was in fact the opposite. All wood had rotted away. What they had seen was the tar covered Oakum. Which had survived. Still fixed on the place were the seams had been.

[danzplanet]

Makes it way more devastating watching a pirate ship sink. All that hard work.

[simonmunns]

I met this lady at the festival, and she was very kind and knowledgeable.

[GloveBoard]

As a shipwright we still do this today! Depending on the vessel it may even be cotton dipped in boiled linseed oil then tar dipped oakum. If the seems are super wide. Too much though, and when the planks swell they may split under the pressure of an over caulked seam! 🎉

[BereniceWhittington]

My grandmothers terraced house was built with an 8ft void under the back rooms. All her floor boards downstairs were calked like this against drafts. Her sailor brothers did it.

[LeithYearwood]

In 1986 in Guyana as a young 27 year old technologist I used a wood called Brown Silverballi which swells in water, to build a large 6 ft diameter tanning drum (to make chrome tanned leather) and personally and single handedly caulked it like the way this lady is doing here. When we fillled the drum with water it leaked like a sieve and the manager panicked thinking he had made a mistake giving me the job because of my youthfullness, but I told him to wait and watch what will happen. In a few hours the wood swelled and tightened up against the caulking which stopped all the leaks. Even I was amazed at how efficient the stoppage was - not a drop of water was passing. I had taken the advice of boat builders in Guyana to use this particular wood and caulking method and it worked beautifully.

[Surfstuff]

In East Africa, they still do this with coconut husk and melted tires.

[ashtonwolgamott]

One of the most impressive things about ships of this age was not just how they were built but how they were repaired on the go. The same is done today in some cases. Today mostly they are repaired in port or in dry docking. Back then ships were constantly in need of repair, sometimes even after just being repaired before journeys. The skill it took was amazing. Many ship builders and repairman would literally have to stop in the middle of nowhere, with only the resources at hand, and make repairs. Sometimes even having to venture onto land, cut trees, mill them by hand, and do things by eye. The absolute skill it took to do those things is what makes it so impressive.

[Doug-rvnr]

The effort it takes to do ANYTHING in life is absolutely wild.

[dablakhl]

Oakum used to be used to be how plumbing fixtures were kept from leaking. For example on a faucet Oakum would be wrapped around the shaft of a spigot handle so when it was opened up to allow water to flow out the Oakum would prevent the water being redirected up and around the shaft and spraying out of the hole the shaft of the handle passed through. Eventually when the handle would leak, you would turn off the water in the house, open up the top of the spigot under the handle, remove the broken Oakum fibers, and repack it with fresh Oakum. Then screw it back together and it would be as good as new.

[snaga]

That must have been incredibly time intensive.

[joedonahue]

THAT'S what caulking is? I was listening to a biography on Frederick Douglass today and it mentioned how this dude was a wizard at caulking, to the point that he used it to fund his escape from slavery (which considering that he had to hand over enough money to his master at the time to keep the guy from getting suspicious means he was making bank for a slave), and I'd heard the word before but I've never really thought to look into it. Mad respect to the people back in the day that had to go through all that.

[TheZapan]

The port city of Marseilles used to be entirely surrounded by hemp fields, providing the fibers for boat ropes and lines. Its main avenue is still named the Canebière, after the Latin word for hemp: Cannabis.

[ONeil-S.D]

You can definitely tell that she is so passionate and loves what she does and loves history and talking about it. I love hearing about it.😊

[perfesser]

"The devil to pay and no pitch hot" comes from this activity. The devil was the longest seam, along the main deck.

[IndustrialParrot]

I will never take Polyurethane foam and Marine Glue for granted anymore

[kathrinmariakrause]

My dad restored an old fishing ship in the Nineties and tried to be as accurate as possible in his building techniques. So he made me do that to the whole dang ship. I spent winter weekend upon winter weekend in an unheated hall, that was made from scaffolding. Little gas heater beside me, so my hands would completely freeze off. Love these memories ❤

[tufgbhw]

In case you dont know what oakem is, it's horse hair covered in wax. The horse hair is corse and the wax makes it hydrophobic.
Im a plumber and we still use oakum, mainly only on cast iron toilet flanges.
It's the same concept but we use lead instead of tar.
So we pack as much oakum around the flange as possible and then dump molten lead on top of the oakum creating a tight waterproof seal.