Matty Bottles

Ah, jeez, Bo, I only got to meet you once. You sound like a guy who has had more than just a passing flirtation with death and danger over your lifetime. Maybe the haughty bitches will let you be.

Merge away, my good man. Whatever you need to keep the site clean.

Thanks for the help, everybody. I think I'm going to get some tar from the site Odorless Eye and Jack Roberts posted. That way I can treat my ropes, too, and maybe even tar a smock for water proofing with having to worry about seizing or gagging from the smell.

What constitutes a "light" tar? This stuff is pretty dark, but not black. There are similar horse treatments out there that ARE 100% Pure Stockholm pine tar, and this one is pine tar, I just can't verify that this one is ONLY pine tar. But it doesn't list any other ingredients. Actually, we can solve this - instead of describing the smell, I'll just post it here. CH3-C6H9-(OH)-C3H5 Now just scratch your monitor and sniff it. You should be able to tell me if it's the same scent or not.

It's good to be back, frankly. Family circumstances permitting, I look forward to being more active in pyracy - one event a year is hardly ideal. Looks like good old Merriam-Webster has the answer: "a place in an old-time man-of-war for keeping gunner's small stores" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lady's%20hole Too bad they don't show etymology.

I confess that I assumed this thread would be about a completely different topic, and I am a bit disappointed, honestly. Although in all seriousness, I bet the name has very little to do with the function of the room. I imagine that it got that name because it is hard to get into and you risk explosion in your efforts. Sailors will be sailorsl. Today's "cut splice" used to have one more letter, after all.

Bacon fat would be a delightful alternative to rancid Vegemite fart. I bought Horse Health Pine Tar, which is used to prevent hoof relayed diseases such as thrush, I believe. I think it's pure pine tar, but I can't verify that. Maybe I need it to dry and the smell will improve? I'm not sure. I love the dishwater recipe, but what is pine straw? Just the dried out needles?

I was looking at this barrel the other day - Bilgemunky has a review on his site. I thought it would be perfect for Wild West, too.

Is this the jute oakum available nowadays, or something else?

I might check that out - it honestly could NOT be worse than pine tar hoof treatment. I bought some "dirt" scented soap at Reenactorfest last year, although it's really more loam scented. It is actually quite fresh and pleasant smelling. I've been flirting with Viking for a while and have been considering daubing my wraps with theolive oil my sardines are packaged in, but I can't yet bring myself to do it. Perhaps just a nose gay of fishyness in a linen bag around my neck?

Here in Wisconsin, old cow chips are easier to find than hemp rope, although we can get manila rope from the hardware store, and hemp flowers in any affordable housing apartment building. Twelve-pound and I are considering checking out Fort de Chartres some time. He has an uncle in St. Louis anyway. If I'm ever down that way, William, I'll bring you some pine tar. And heck, Bo, too, if you're reading this, (although you might already have a horse, I think? I can't remember.) l have all I'll ever need, so I can spare some.

Ah, OAK! I love it. Thanks, Mister Hook. I will add that to my list.

Yeah, pine tar was going too far, I think. It smells like a rotting vegetable fat. It smells the way Vegemite would if it were the corpse of a once living animal. But now I have a quart of the stuff, and I actually might try some waterproofing/tarring experiments, to see how it works out.

This might be later than interests you, but Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes is, in my mind, not only the best of the Mystery! series, but he gives the best performance of Holmes EVER.

Inspired by a thread on this forum several years ago and a few close encounters with Maddogge at this year's Pike River, I thought I should try to capture the smell of a pirate, as close as possible. I did this for a few reasons: 1) I hate the smell of bug spray. Bug spray and campfire smoke together smell so chemically and nasty that it just takes me right out of period. Maybe I can make myself stink so much that the bugs will leave me alone! 2) I tend to stink after a few days in the sun and no shower anyway, so I might as well stink as historically accurate as possible. After Pike River, I balled up all my clothes and threw them into a tupperware container without washing them. HEck, I didn't even dry them! Then I poured a few dollops of rum in there after them and shook them up good. Then I poured a shot of jaegermaeister because I was worried the rum smell would fade too much. Then I took a handle of tea bags, about a dozen or so, and threw them in there too, and shut it up tight. Then after a few days they still mostly smelled rummy. So I took them out and used them to clean my pistols. And then I went to the Farm'n'Fleet and bought a can of pine tar, because if Sailors smelled of anything, it was pine tar. I scraped some onto a sponge, and then stuck another sponge to it, and placed it in the container with my clothes. That way the smell would permeate without the tar actually sticking to any of the clothes, because this stuff is tacky as heck and I would be in serious danger of ruining my clothes. Not because of stains on my outfit, but because of transference to other people's outfits with sword fights and whatnot. Seriously, this stuff is STICKY. And let me tell you something: Pine tar smells awful. Apparently it is made as a treatment for horse hooves. Horses don't mind the smell, which isn't surprising, because it smells like something a horse would make, if you get my drift. Seriously, this stuff is nasty. No wonder sailors smoked so much. So after old campfire smoke, rum, jaeger, tea leaves, gun oil and black powder residue, the pine tar makes me think I might have ruined my clothes. I wonder if tobacco leaf might salvage it. I will try that next.

Sure...- a FEW brews...

Hey, it's hard to communicate tone online. I think that I type the way I talk, but generally come across as much less abrasive in person. So, like I said, let's pull back a few brews if we happen to find ourselves together at an event (after the public has gone home and all the powder is burned, of course) and just shoot the breeze.

Well... it's totalitarian, that's for sure. But so was the feudal system, and that was the few deciding how resources are to be used by the many. I guess my whole point is if our playgrounds are subsidized by the taxes of the non-reenacting majority, isn't that already communist or at least socialist in a way? Some folks think the notion of anything publically owned is already skirting the boundaries of communism, which triggered my private land comment. I guess I'm just saying that just because something isn't fair doesn't immediately make it communist. Like all words, it means something specific and use it too much and it'll lose its bite, and I'm hearing it a lot as the election cycle gears up. That's not your fault, of course, and I shouldn't have insinuated that it was. I do think that the assumption that reenacting is inherently disrespectful can quite legitimately be construed as insulting, even if I suspect that hurricane is right and it wasn't deliberate. But then after the three minute mark they praise living historians, so again we have to ask how they are defining their terms. What we should probably do is meet in person, and drink too much, and come to some drunken consensus that neither of us remembers the next day.

Well, they say they really value living historians, so... how are we defining reenactor vs. living historian? Also, I don't think Teddy Roosevelt is spinning in his grave if a nesting area for a protected species becomes a protected area. The NPS was started "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." I would dare say the vast number of visitors to these sites are not reenactors, or are not visiting as part of a reenactment. And for all of those complaining about communism and socialism and other -isms... really? If the federally-funded playground payed for by many more non-reenacting taxpayers than reenacting taxpayers doesn't let your social little group play, they're communist? How about you play on state land, or local land, or even, heck, PRIVATE land? NPS rules for NPS managed properties isn't a nanny state. Feds telling you how to play on your OWN land - well, you might have a case there.

I wouldn't be surprised if the FBI sent them up the river, frankly. It is a big organization filled with individuals, any number of whom could be crooked. It wouldn't be the first time private US enterprises had moles IN the justice department, either.

I will ask my friend Bilgemunky when he returns from his travels.

Doesn't Stynky know? I thought he was one of the earliest members. Bilgemunky has a veteran, too. He might know.

I'm so glad I don't have to bump this. I was just at an event and I stopped by the sign of the unicorn, and what do I see? Shirt-weight linen, window-pane checked in blue. It's half way down this page: Man, I have been looking for this tuff for YEARS. I had a lead on some cotton checked with blue from a later period that I was going to take a chance on, but it was discontinued before I could waste my money.

A sharp-pointed knife as the usually carry? That's interesting. When I decided to head toward history and away from Hollywood, I first bought linen, and then bought a hudson bay-style knife. Luckily I already had a hat.