Tarred clothing

[capnwilliam]

I was thinking about cooking up some tarred hats, jackets, etc. fer our Baratarians: give us a more nautical look, and protection from the rain. But then I got to thinkin' more deep-like : am I not increasing our risk of startin' a fire, with the tarred clothes as the tinder, and our carcasses as the fuel?

This especially worries me, since we are a cannon crew!

Capt. William

[BattChief]

Your clothing would be very suseptible to catching fire, especially from the smoldering snipes put off during artillery fire. Would set to close to the fire Neither. Plus you'd be hard to put out!

Battalion Chief

[Patrick Hand]

capn. William I've made "tarred" hats, by painting semi-gloss black oil base paint over canvas.... works well.....

outta couriosity.... I just held a lit lighter to the edge of the one shown in my avitar for 10 seconds to see if it would catch fire..... sucker didn't even start to smoulder..... (kinda suprised me..... I thought it would burn a little...)

I say, go ahead and tar a test hat (or scrap of cloth).... see if you get the same results......

[capnwilliam]

outta couriosity.... I just held a lit lighter to the edge of the one shown in my avitar for 10 seconds to see if it would catch fire..... sucker didn't even start to smoulder..... (kinda suprised me..... I thought it would burn a little...)

I say, go ahead and tar a test hat (or scrap of cloth).... see if you get the same results......

Patrick, the hat you used in yer test: was that done with tar, or with the paint?

Capt. William

[Patrick Hand]

...Paint....

I used oil based paint..... and its been dry for over a year now..... I don't know if that would change the flamibility or not......

I have no Idea how tar would react..... but you could do a test on some fabric and quickly find out......

[Fox]

A couple of years back I was privileged anough to be allowed access to a 17thC seaman's suit in the Museum of London, which consisted of tarred doublet and breeches. The thing with the tar was that it was very thin, it hardly impeded the cloth at all. So, based on that I tried a few different ways of tarring fabric. What I found worked well was a mix of black bitumin paint (which is basically thin tar) and turpentine, which I then painted on wool and canvas. The effect is a waterproof coat which looks and feels like tar, and what's more it smell's like tar. I don't know exactly how they did it originally, but they had the materials to do it my way, and the end result is the same, so I reckon I'm pretty close.

For stiff hats I tend to use a lot less turps in the mix, if any.

I've never deliberately set fire to my tarred gear, but I've certainly never had any problems with black powder or fires. But don't take my word for it, you've got me worried now...

[Jib]

Foxe, Pat

Any chance we can see what that looks like?

When I think Tar I see road tar, thick, sticky, nasty, heavy, and smelly.

[Fox]

Tarred canvas smock.

[capnwilliam]

It looks great, Foxe! I have a tarred ground cloth that I throw over my firewood; looks much like the smock.

Capt. William

[Jib]

Foxe it doesn't look comfortable.

Is the purpose to repel water and make the cloth last longer?

[Fox]

It's a little stiff, but not uncomfortable.

The principal is to repel water, and it sure works. I've literally had a bucket of water poured over me in that smock and was completely dry inside.

[Patrick Hand]

I was looking for something compleatly different, and found this ......

http://www.maritime.org/conf/conf-kaye-tar.htm

All about pine tar......

[JoshuaRed]

Oil based paint dries as a chemical process, not with air the way water based paint does. In other words, holding a still wet watercolor under a hairdryer will speed the process of the water evaporating in the pigment, leaving only the pigment. Oil paint on the other hand, will just take X amount of time to cure FULLY, regardless of the environmental conditions, up to a year. This curing process is the gradual evaporation of the medium used to get the pigment down (turpentine, linseed oil, etc), leaving behind the pigment.

So if you tar some clothing with oil-based paint, and let it cure for 6 months to a year, I'd say you are sufficently less flammable than if you tried to wear some freshly painted gear immediately.

[Tall Paul]

Inspired by Patrick Hand's example,

outta couriosity.... I just held a lit lighter to the edge of the one shown in my avitar for 10 seconds to see if it would catch fire.....

I tried putting a match to one of the tarred straw hats that I made up for last years Trafalgar event......

.......The resulting conflagration eventually spread to the house next door, and took three fire engines to extinguish. I am now living in a damp cardboard box on my garage, awaiting charges of arson and damage to property.

.....Just joking,

In fact, I was surprised at how difficult it was to get the tar to catch, although it did eventually ignite after dripping molten pitch all over the place.

I was looking for something compleatly different, and found this ......

http://www.maritime.org/conf/conf-kaye-tar.htm

All about pine tar.......

This was an interesting link, when you mention tar or pitch, most people think of the Bituminous road tar that is used nowadays, which can be highly toxic, and unpleasant to work with.

If I remember correctly, there is a referance to extracting pitch from a local tree in Buccaneers of America.

Tall Paul

[BILLY BONES]

Correct me if I'm dreaming this, but as encouragement to those who prefer to use a latex paint to simulate tarred items, I seem to recall a study of several Civil War (American) tarred haversacks, and the results on their analization concluding that many were covered in something closely resembling black latex paint. I'm sure that many were Confederate manufactured haversacks, which could have dubious ingrediants in their mixture. I have seen some reenactor haversacks which had been painted with latex, and in time, the stuff actually gets that kind of brown cast in the wear spots that actual tarring gets. It also repels water to a point, but doesn't seem to permeate the fibers like tar does. In other words, you get leaks. Just throwing that out there. BB