What is Blacking ?

[Gelmaster]

Can anyone explain what the term..Blacking...means,
does it involve the application of "VC" tar to a hull?
Thankyou... i am new to this sight and have loads of questions, and really appreciate all the advice given!

 

[dt4134]

Can anyone explain what the term..Blacking...means,
does it involve the application of "VC" tar to a hull?
Thankyou... i am new to this sight and have loads of questions, and really appreciate all the advice given!

I've applied VCtar to a hull as an epoxy primer before applying VC whatever racing anti-foul. It was black but I never heard the term 'blacking' applied to it.

What is the context?

 

[LONG_KEELER]

It is often a term used for canal boats.

A form of tar that goes on the underwater parts.

 

[Gelmaster]

ime not even sure of the context, it was an expression i heard or read about a short while ago!
I believe the context was...."antifouling & blacking".
I was also just browsing some old entries, page 76, copper bottom !!
Nearly ended up in a court case.
Has anyone else had any previous problems using copper based antifoul?

 

[Gelmaster]

Thankyou "long keeler", So i am on the right path.
Is it primarily a freshwater technique?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Traditionally, "blacking" was a coating applied to the yards of square-riggers. It was basically tar plus pigments plus a little black magic!

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

Yes, traditionally a bitumen based product. My grandad and I used to put it on my dinghy when I was a kid
see....
http://www.mainline-building.co.uk/coatings.htm

 

[rob2]

Well, in my world "blacking" is applied to the face before dancing Border Morris...

Rob.

 

[Twister_Ken]

No no no. It's used in Northern households for polishing up the fire grate.
Mam does it, while pa is down the pub, racing pints and drinking whippets.

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

No no no. It's used in Northern households for polishing up the fire grate.
Mam does it, while pa is down the pub, racing pints and drinking whippets.

Blackening?
And my pa was a terrier racing man!

 

[CPD]

No no no. It's used in Northern households for polishing up the fire grate.
Mam does it, while pa is down the pub, racing pints and drinking whippets.

Ken is right, tho substitute "dad" for "pa".

 

[prv]

Traditionally, "blacking" was a coating applied to the yards of square-riggers. It was basically tar plus pigments plus a little black magic!

Not to the yards, but to the majority of the standing rigging, footropes, etc.

Any wire that doesn't move and doesn't have a staysail set on it will be protected by the application of grease, hessian parcelling, more grease, and a tightly wound serving of tarred marline (the "tar" in which is stockholm tar so golden rather than black). If it were a rope rather than a wire it would start with marline parcelling to fill out the gaps in the lay, but we don't have any standing cordage so I've never done that. The whole thing is then waterproofed by blacking painted on and worked well into the serving by hand with a vaguely masturbatory action. It takes a few days to dry into a solid impermeable skin; in the meantime if the wire in question is fitted with ratlines the deckies will be cursed by anyone who's gone aloft and come down covered in gunge

I don't know what goes into the blacking (the bosun makes it and I just take a tinful in a rigging bag from the fo'c'sle) but stockholm tar, black paint, linseed and varnish all sound like likely ingredients. I wouldn't dispute the black magic

Pete

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Not to the yards, but to the majority of the standing rigging, footropes, etc.

Any wire that doesn't move and doesn't have a staysail set on it will be protected by the application of grease, hessian parcelling, more grease, and a tightly wound serving of tarred marline (the "tar" in which is stockholm tar so golden rather than black). If it were a rope rather than a wire it would start with marline parcelling to fill out the gaps in the lay, but we don't have any standing cordage so I've never done that. The whole thing is then waterproofed by blacking painted on and worked well into the serving by hand with a vaguely masturbatory action. It takes a few days to dry into a solid impermeable skin; in the meantime if the wire in question is fitted with ratlines the deckies will be cursed by anyone who's gone aloft and come down covered in gunge

I don't know what goes into the blacking (the bosun makes it and I just take a tinful in a rigging bag from the fo'c'sle) but stockholm tar, black paint, linseed and varnish all sound like likely ingredients. I wouldn't dispute the black magic

Pete

I'm thinking of the time before wire rigging, when standing rigging was tarred hemp, and yards were made of wood.

 

[prv]

I'm thinking of the time before wire rigging, when standing rigging was tarred hemp, and yards were made of wood.

Right, but you still wouldn't put blacking on the yards. Would you? Our wooden yards get Deks Olje; I'd have assumed some kind of varnish type substance would have been used. I suppose come to think of it black tar is possible.

The only difference in treatment I'm aware of between hemp standing rigging and wire is whether it needs worming or not. I learned "worm and parcel with the lay, turn and serve the other way" before I ever served any wire rigging.

Interestingly someone I sailed with on Stavros, whose normal job is on bulk fertiliser carriers and the like, told me she taught her deckhands on those ships how to do traditional servings on some of the few lines they have on board, and they reckoned it a great improvement on the plastic chafe guards they had been using.

Pete

 

[xyachtdave]

Can anyone explain what the term..Blacking...means,
does it involve the application of "VC" tar to a hull?
Thankyou... i am new to this sight and have loads of questions, and really appreciate all the advice given!

Not sure, but if is anything 'marine' related, expect it to be very expensive.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Right, but you still wouldn't put blacking on the yards. Would you? Our wooden yards get Deks Olje; I'd have assumed some kind of varnish type substance would have been used. I suppose come to think of it black tar is possible.

The only difference in treatment I'm aware of between hemp standing rigging and wire is whether it needs worming or not. I learned "worm and parcel with the lay, turn and serve the other way" before I ever served any wire rigging.

Interestingly someone I sailed with on Stavros, whose normal job is on bulk fertiliser carriers and the like, told me she taught her deckhands on those ships how to do traditional servings on some of the few lines they have on board, and they reckoned it a great improvement on the plastic chafe guards they had been using.

Pete

Yes, they did - and on the guns as well. I am talking about Nelson's day. Blacking, others have related, is a magic mix of linseed oil, tar and other things - so I guess it is a sort of black, opaque varnish, really.

I recall us using something like that on the underwater parts of my Dad's first boat, a converted lifeboat.

 

[Bobobolinsky]

black bitumen or epoxy coating for the hull, used on canals

 

[mirror image]

I thought it was the stockholm tar tat they put on the running rigging.

I remember looking at one of Cooks logs at the National Archive. The statement 'had the people blacking down' sticks in my mind.

My dad also converted a ships lifeboat and the bottom was covered in bitumen.

 

[Gelmaster]

Thankyou for the replies!

I "think" the context i was looking for, was from "Longkeeler".

Bitumen or tar applied to narrowboats.

I guess all the above terms and applications sent in are correct

Thanks again!

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

Thankyou for the replies!

I think the context i was looking for, was from "Longkeeler".

Bitumen or tar applied to narrowboats.

I guess all the above terms and applications are correct

Thanks again!

cheek!
:0