Page 584 - The Ashley Book of Knots

DECORATIVE MARLING SPIKE SEAJ\IANSHIP (APPLIED KNOTS)

3667. A kit is a deck bucket, larger at the bottom than ;Jt the top.

It is less apt to slop over in a seaway. This also is equipped with

MATIHEW WALKER KNOTS.

3668. Mess bucket and fire bucket bails are four-strand ropes,

wormed, and generally finished off with LANYARD KNOTS, and some-

times with MANROPE KNOTS.

3669. Many mess buckets have hickory bails and the hiilge is often

a bone or ivory button, with a small hickory fid on the inside.

3670. Draw buckets are heavily made, as they are subjected to very

hard service. The heaviest canvas is used, and the best-made ones

have chafing gear added wherever it will serve a purpose. This one

has a grommet at the rim and bottom, and a rope yarn sinnet is ap-

pliqued to the canvas surface. The bail is eye spliced to the grommet

rim, an eye is seized into the bail to which the bucket rope is made

fast, with a SINGLE BECKET HITCH. The end of the bucket rope is

generally finished off either with an En: SPLICE or a DOG's POINT

(~28IJ)· o

3671. This is an old, heavy-duty draw bucket from a high-sided

ship, which I donated to the half-size model ship Lagoda. The canvas

is of two pieces sewed flat together. An iron hoop at the top is

hemmed over, SEVEN-STRAND FLAT SINNET is appliqued in different

designs to the two sides. The bail passes entirely around the bucket

and a thimble is seized in at the top. The bucket rope is eye spliced

to the thimble and the splice itself is hitched over. There is a LONG

EYE SPLICE in the end of the bucket rope. It came from a junk shop

in San Francisco. Small mast hoops have often been used at the tops

and bottoms of draw buckets; not uncommonly they have wooden

bottoms.

3672. This is a ship's paper case; it was always taken ashore by the

captain when the ship made port. The case was often made of brass,

but old ones were allio of wood, canvas-covered. This one hears the

name of the ship on its side. The canvas is sewed through awl holes

in the wood around the upper edge. The top of the lid is hitched

over decoratively with linen thread. The bottom is surrounded with

about eight circuits of hitching and there is a linen thread seizing

across the center.

3673. The most efficient means of crushing ice that I have found

is a hand-sewn No. I canvas bag twenty-two inches long and ten

inches wide. This is filled with ice and beaten with a heavy lignum- 36"1'

vitae mallet against a stone hearth. If the edges of the mallet are

rounded slightly with a file, the bag will last a lifetime and give

better service than any other hand-driven device for the "arne pur-

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against the stone, but this requires more energy than should be

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exerted in warm weather. -
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