I have just started my Hobby Boss Lord Nelson (I know, I just started the Victory too).
I am working up a color for the deck. Seems to me the deck colors recommended on so many late 19th to early 20th Century ships seem to replicate natural wood. But those woods bleach out in a week or two to a much lower saturation color. How often were the decks scrubbed? If the deck were renewed within a week, maybe it would look that woody, but if less frequently I intend to go somewhat more gray.
She was the flagship of the Channel Fleet and later the Eastern Med Squadron.
I would guess the answer was “ often”. There’d be a lot of spit and polish on her.
What I remember reading of period standing orders is that the decks were washed & stoned daily.
Part of that is that no soap/detergent was carried for the decks; the decks were simply sluiced down with sea water and the stones floated in that.
This was less a maintenance item as a method of putting a few hundred idle hands to work lest they get up to mischief.
Now, I’ve never read, in orders, contemporary accounts, or even fiction, as to whether the guns were cast loose to was under them, or how the spirketting & waterway fared with groggy tars bashing sandstones about.
That’s my 2¢ at least
Well ;
It’s my understanding that " Stoning " was a daily thing . One , to keep the deck clean and Two , To give the swabbies something to do if they weren’t needed on gun crews or in the rigging .
Thanks, guys. I’ll mix up that deck color to have more wood color.
Royal Navy sailors holy stoning a deck on the HMS PANDORA during the early 20th century. These sandstone scrubbers were about the dementions of a bible and the fact that the sailor-scrubbers had get on their knees to scrub a ship’s deck.
Source Wikipedia Happy modeling Crackers [:O]