Speaking on Jarrah for a moment. My grandfather once worked with some jarrah on a lathe. He had breakfast and sharpened the chisels. Took a morning break break and then sharpened the chisels. Had some lunch and sharpened the chisels. Finally for the day, wrapped up by sharpening his chisels. It's not called ironwood without good reason. Very good reason. It's jarrah, it's tough stuff. There's stories here about why so many limestone buildings there are. They tried to cut the trees and got nowhere, I mean no where. Broken tools. Cut the stone, nice and soft in comparison. As a final note, wish I could have gotten this. It was a presentation SMLE Number 3 Mark 1* with jarrah furniture. Polished up it looked amazing.
Jarrah was the favoured timber for use as mainline sleepers and S&C timbers, for British Rail. Really hard and resistant to rot. However it got too expensive and there was a move to concrete, where the use of timber was not essential.
The building site of the Endeavour Replica in Perth took pains to talk about how tough the jarrah was. It was only used up to the waterline to lower the tool costs... and reduce the hull weight.
@@leftcoaster67 As far as I know, the wider family is Australian only. It can be shipped internationally and was but we're the only natural, native source.
40:00 Speaking of incredibly difficult woods to work with, my father used to tell me that in the late 80’s a company he worked for that built industrial food grade drying machines used to have massive pallets to transport major assemblies that were made out of some kind of swamp oak from the American south. Apparently it was impossible to drive nails into and burned-out multiple power drills when they were trying to disassemble the pallets post-item shipping. Also unbelievably heavy. Supposedly they were assembled with some kind of big nail-driving impact hammer thing….if I ever find one of those old pallets I’m pretty sure I could build a shed out of it.
Ai 42:12 you referenced a lack of Spanish mahogany. I would suggest a substitute from Brazil called Ipe. It is very dense, resiny, has great long, straight grain. A major factor in making Live Oak so strong in the colonial period it is typically, the trees grew in the shadows of 100-foot tall trees that blocked the sunlight. The grain is very tight because the tree grew little each year.
When a live oak dies here in Texas you have to cut it up really fast. Because in a year it will be so hard your axe will just bounce off of it and your chainsaw will just make sparks until you smoke your chain.
Crane Naval Weapon Support Center (Crane, Indiana) has a Large Wooded Area (basically a Forrest) of carefully managed Live Oak! It is for support of USS Constitution, and other Historical Sailing Ships.
With that picture of Bouvet, I confess I'm less interested in the wood backing of the armour than I am with the fact that there appears to be an actual forest growing on the upper deck.
He was also on Times Radio History’s “History Undone” series discussing the battle of Jutland. That’s Drach with an extra helping of Drach and a side order of Drach and Drach for dessert. 😊 Idk about anyone else but I’m hardly Drachini-full.
Drachinifel puts the Drac into Draconian. 😆"...prison terms...executed for treason...those kind of things just unfortunately aren't done anymore" (53:37)
Re: types of wood for Napoleonic-era ships (at 38:20), I recently looked up technical information on various species of oak (at the website "The Wood Database"). In terms of hardness measured on the Janka Scale (the force required to push an 11.3 mm steel ball halfway into the wood) English oak requires 4,980 newtons, American white oak 5,990 N, but American live oak came in at an amazing 12,920 N! So, perhaps the reports of shot bouncing off USS Constitution is somewhat accurate as live oak is MUCH harder than other typical ship woods. FYI: Jarrah has a Janka hardness of 8,270 N. In addition, both the modulus of rupture and elasticity of live oak were better than English oak, Dutch elm, or European ash.
I've worked with teak, replacing stuff on an old boat. It's terrible on tools. It has a high silica content (abrasive). You have to use carbide blades and drill bits. I started with tool steel drill bits and would get maybe 5 holes before the bit became worthless without resharpening. Even carbide I'd only get perhaps 20 holes before needing to be resharpened. It actually planes and surfaces with the grain easily, easier than oak, but drilling and cross cutting chews up tools.
Another difference between ship procurement during the period the channel covers and now is that it was far more likely for ships to be built to designs prepared by the navy then while today often the same company is contracted to design and build a class of ships. Navies today generally have less design and construction expertise in-house, limiting their ability to evaluate and supervise contracts. Sadly, this lack of in-house expertise affecting government procurement is a general issue, not just for naval procurement.
Cheers Drach. You're always right on time, like Il Duce's trains. Is it possible to see a sneek peek at USS Enterprise, due to launch in 2025? I can imagine Ryan Symansky(?), John Parshall, Seth and Captain Todi aboard, looking like kids in a candy store.
Re your answer to when did "UK become relatively secure against invasion by sea", how does the Royal Navy's failure to stop the 1688 invasion play imto this? (Admittedly landing in the South East was avoided and the invasion would have failed if the army, or James for that matter, had been willing to fight.)
For the most part, the majority of the RN at that stage was quite happy to let William land. There are a lot ofthings that on paper they could've done to stop the landings that weren't done either through deliberate inaction or James appointees taking action more designed to maintain loyalty than counter outside threats.
"For the mast and yards I would probably go with fir" sounded like "fur" to me, and I immediately imagined a pink dyed and-fluffy faux fur topped ship which could haunt my nightmares. And now it may it also haunt yours. (Asides from the jarrah. I already hate wengé. )
The fortress Sveaborg/Viapori/Suomenlinna off Helsinki has a demonstration of how 19th century cannon fared: When the Russian fleet arrived off the fortress during the war of 1808 and began bombarding the fortress, the commander surrendered without a fight. The Swedish cannon did not have the range to threaten the Russian ships. In mockery of this fact, the Russians took the Swedish guns and used them as fence posts around the church they constructed in the fortress. However, when the Crimean War arrived, the shoe was on the other foot: The Russian cannon could not threaten the British ships bombarding the fortress... and so it goes.
Greek Fire: Perhaps for Safe Transport, they shipped it not fully mixed. And when it was loaded aboard a warship they mixed it together (like a Catalyst or thickening agent for instance). Of course the merchant ship crew, may not have known this, other than they were going to offload several different items. And those who did, out of loyalty didn't tell anyone which cask/keg needed to be mixed with the Greek Fire Barrels (and perhaps how much!). For instance half of each keg goes into each Barrel.....
Given the discussion of various woods and your qualification of using modern power tools to enable use of Jarrah, what, if any, advantage, could be gained in ship of the line construction if by some time shifting using modern glue laminated or timber strand technology was possible?
Everyone talking about different woods in the comments. So... We just got some cool woods at work. One is called purple heart and I can't remember the other but it's bright red. Idk about their hardness but they look cool. I can't wait to see what we make with it.
Electronic systems are the primary reason for cost overruns and building delays in modern military ship construction. These systems are complex and often pushing the state of the art.
The German Command of Group V was aware of the Norwegian coastal gun batteries at the entrance of the Oslofjord and at the Drobak Narrows. That said, they were not aware of the land based Kaholmen torpedo battery . Lack of fire, just warning shoots, from the outer batteries at Bolarne and Rauney gave the senior German commander aboard Blucher, Admiral Kummetz, a false sense of security that the batteries at the Drobak Narrows would not fire on the German force. Even in the event these batteries fired the plan was for a quick transit of the Narrows. limiting the time the German ships would be exposed to the gun battery. What had not been expected were torpedo hits, which ultimately led to the sinking of Blucher. In the end the German entrance to the Oslo Fjord did fail due to faulty intelligence, but not for a lack of understanding that gun batteries existed but, for the lack of understanding of the existence of a torpedo battery that complimented the guns. Source: The Sinking of the Blucher, Haarr & Melien 2023
Hey Drach, not sure if this is the right place to ask these questions but. During a ship of the line engagement during the age of sail, how likely were you to be killed/wounded depending on where in the ship you are and where (if anywhere) would have been a safe place to be.
TIL the power of Jarrah wood. Would early 19th century steam/water powered saws be able to handle it, or would you need specifically MODERN power tools.
So if a country wanted cheekily get around the Washington naval treaty could it build significant amounts of large coastal encampments even if it was never intended to be pulled out to learn and experiment with different loaders, barrel manufacturing, traversal speeds, etc
To a degree, the difference being that noone expected a Flower class to fight anything than subs and the odd patrol aircraft. 3rd class cruisers theoretical should and sometimes did end up facing down full on warships
@Drachinifel Should have named them after unwarlike, like small rodents or various species of grass. But more seriously, when the 3rd class cruisers were fitted out correctly and not thrown at non-peer opponents, they typically performed ok. Kind of like taking a 3 masted sloop and seeing how it would do against Constitution or Indefatigable. Yes, they're both cruisers....
If they insist on having torpedoes on US cruisers, then it makes sense that they remove main guns to make room for it. It's the main guns that aren't cutting it, why would you remove the AA guns? The question as stated just doesn't make sense.
Foolish Drach, you should have built your wood should of some of the rare wood from New Zealand, you could have sold e wood in the ship and bought a fleet of Normal ships.....
Speaking on Jarrah for a moment.
My grandfather once worked with some jarrah on a lathe. He had breakfast and sharpened the chisels. Took a morning break break and then sharpened the chisels. Had some lunch and sharpened the chisels. Finally for the day, wrapped up by sharpening his chisels.
It's not called ironwood without good reason. Very good reason.
It's jarrah, it's tough stuff.
There's stories here about why so many limestone buildings there are. They tried to cut the trees and got nowhere, I mean no where. Broken tools. Cut the stone, nice and soft in comparison.
As a final note, wish I could have gotten this. It was a presentation SMLE Number 3 Mark 1* with jarrah furniture. Polished up it looked amazing.
Is it just found in Australia?
Jarrah was the favoured timber for use as mainline sleepers and S&C timbers, for British Rail. Really hard and resistant to rot. However it got too expensive and there was a move to concrete, where the use of timber was not essential.
The building site of the Endeavour Replica in Perth took pains to talk about how tough the jarrah was. It was only used up to the waterline to lower the tool costs... and reduce the hull weight.
@@leftcoaster67 As far as I know, the wider family is Australian only. It can be shipped internationally and was but we're the only natural, native source.
40:00 Speaking of incredibly difficult woods to work with, my father used to tell me that in the late 80’s a company he worked for that built industrial food grade drying machines used to have massive pallets to transport major assemblies that were made out of some kind of swamp oak from the American south. Apparently it was impossible to drive nails into and burned-out multiple power drills when they were trying to disassemble the pallets post-item shipping. Also unbelievably heavy. Supposedly they were assembled with some kind of big nail-driving impact hammer thing….if I ever find one of those old pallets I’m pretty sure I could build a shed out of it.
Best opening tune on TH-cam. I love Cab Calloway.
Ai 42:12 you referenced a lack of Spanish mahogany. I would suggest a substitute from Brazil called Ipe. It is very dense, resiny, has great long, straight grain.
A major factor in making Live Oak so strong in the colonial period it is typically, the trees grew in the shadows of 100-foot tall trees that blocked the sunlight. The grain is very tight because the tree grew little each year.
When a live oak dies here in Texas you have to cut it up really fast. Because in a year it will be so hard your axe will just bounce off of it and your chainsaw will just make sparks until you smoke your chain.
Everything is the biggest and hardest it will ever be in Texas!
Crane Naval Weapon Support Center (Crane, Indiana) has a Large Wooded Area (basically a Forrest) of carefully managed Live Oak! It is for support of USS Constitution, and other Historical Sailing Ships.
I didnt know that, but that explains alot...
With that picture of Bouvet, I confess I'm less interested in the wood backing of the armour than I am with the fact that there appears to be an actual forest growing on the upper deck.
13:03 I could see Battery Commander Drac, Cutlass in hand, bullseyeing ship after ship with that monster size shore battery 😎.
4 hour Livestream yesterday, Drydock 328 now, 5 minute guide later tonight, Drachinifel heaven!!
Such commitment must be applauded!
He was also on Times Radio History’s “History Undone” series discussing the battle of Jutland. That’s Drach with an extra helping of Drach and a side order of Drach and Drach for dessert. 😊
Idk about anyone else but I’m hardly Drachini-full.
My mind is blown, Drach has a Spanish language channel as well... Can you imagine when he gets to the 3-hour livestreams of El Dique Seco? 😵💫
And book releases in Spring.
@@mightymo-ij9pz😮😂
Drachinifel puts the Drac into Draconian. 😆"...prison terms...executed for treason...those kind of things just unfortunately aren't done anymore" (53:37)
Re: types of wood for Napoleonic-era ships (at 38:20), I recently looked up technical information on various species of oak (at the website "The Wood Database").
In terms of hardness measured on the Janka Scale (the force required to push an 11.3 mm steel ball halfway into the wood) English oak requires 4,980 newtons, American white oak 5,990 N, but American live oak came in at an amazing 12,920 N! So, perhaps the reports of shot bouncing off USS Constitution is somewhat accurate as live oak is MUCH harder than other typical ship woods. FYI: Jarrah has a Janka hardness of 8,270 N.
In addition, both the modulus of rupture and elasticity of live oak were better than English oak, Dutch elm, or European ash.
I've worked with teak, replacing stuff on an old boat. It's terrible on tools. It has a high silica content (abrasive). You have to use carbide blades and drill bits. I started with tool steel drill bits and would get maybe 5 holes before the bit became worthless without resharpening. Even carbide I'd only get perhaps 20 holes before needing to be resharpened. It actually planes and surfaces with the grain easily, easier than oak, but drilling and cross cutting chews up tools.
Heart Rimu would be a good choice for the hull planking as well. But like Aussie hardwood, you'd need modern tools to work it once it was seasoned.
Another difference between ship procurement during the period the channel covers and now is that it was far more likely for ships to be built to designs prepared by the navy then while today often the same company is contracted to design and build a class of ships. Navies today generally have less design and construction expertise in-house, limiting their ability to evaluate and supervise contracts. Sadly, this lack of in-house expertise affecting government procurement is a general issue, not just for naval procurement.
Well that would just make sence. Burocuracy does not permit people who know far more than many levels above them.
Cheers Drach. You're always right on time, like Il Duce's trains.
Is it possible to see a sneek peek at USS Enterprise, due to launch in 2025? I can imagine Ryan Symansky(?), John Parshall, Seth and Captain Todi aboard, looking like kids in a candy store.
19:30 the belt armor knows were it is at all times, because it knows where it isn't
Setting up the Xmas tree while the Drydock in the background, pretty good combo imho
@38:47 - I still use a Jarrah furniture set I bought 30 years ago in Perth, Australia.
Thanks for answering my question. I had no idea how old grapeshot and it's predecessors were.
As always, thanks for the answer, Drach!
Re your answer to when did "UK become relatively secure against invasion by sea", how does the Royal Navy's failure to stop the 1688 invasion play imto this? (Admittedly landing in the South East was avoided and the invasion would have failed if the army, or James for that matter, had been willing to fight.)
For the most part, the majority of the RN at that stage was quite happy to let William land. There are a lot ofthings that on paper they could've done to stop the landings that weren't done either through deliberate inaction or James appointees taking action more designed to maintain loyalty than counter outside threats.
"For the mast and yards I would probably go with fir" sounded like "fur" to me, and I immediately imagined a pink dyed and-fluffy faux fur topped ship which could haunt my nightmares. And now it may it also haunt yours.
(Asides from the jarrah. I already hate wengé. )
The fortress Sveaborg/Viapori/Suomenlinna off Helsinki has a demonstration of how 19th century cannon fared: When the Russian fleet arrived off the fortress during the war of 1808 and began bombarding the fortress, the commander surrendered without a fight. The Swedish cannon did not have the range to threaten the Russian ships. In mockery of this fact, the Russians took the Swedish guns and used them as fence posts around the church they constructed in the fortress. However, when the Crimean War arrived, the shoe was on the other foot: The Russian cannon could not threaten the British ships bombarding the fortress... and so it goes.
40:23 I would use the wood from my sons play set, it was originally my play set and it has been seasoned about 20 times over
Greek Fire: Perhaps for Safe Transport, they shipped it not fully mixed. And when it was loaded aboard a warship they mixed it together (like a Catalyst or thickening agent for instance). Of course the merchant ship crew, may not have known this, other than they were going to offload several different items. And those who did, out of loyalty didn't tell anyone which cask/keg needed to be mixed with the Greek Fire Barrels (and perhaps how much!). For instance half of each keg goes into each Barrel.....
Given the discussion of various woods and your qualification of using modern power tools to enable use of Jarrah, what, if any, advantage, could be gained in ship of the line construction if by some time shifting using modern glue laminated or timber strand technology was possible?
Nowadays the Ash tree has its own type of rot.
It goes deeper than the leaves and the bark.
The English Elm used to be a pleasant looking tree.
Everyone talking about different woods in the comments. So...
We just got some cool woods at work. One is called purple heart and I can't remember the other but it's bright red. Idk about their hardness but they look cool. I can't wait to see what we make with it.
Electronic systems are the primary reason for cost overruns and building delays in modern military ship construction. These systems are complex and often pushing the state of the art.
Thank you.
The German Command of Group V was aware of the Norwegian coastal gun batteries at the entrance of the Oslofjord and at the Drobak Narrows. That said, they were not aware of the land based Kaholmen torpedo battery . Lack of fire, just warning shoots, from the outer batteries at Bolarne and Rauney gave the senior German commander aboard Blucher, Admiral Kummetz, a false sense of security that the batteries at the Drobak Narrows would not fire on the German force. Even in the event these batteries fired the plan was for a quick transit of the Narrows. limiting the time the German ships would be exposed to the gun battery. What had not been expected were torpedo hits, which ultimately led to the sinking of Blucher. In the end the German entrance to the Oslo Fjord did fail due to faulty intelligence, but not for a lack of understanding that gun batteries existed but, for the lack of understanding of the existence of a torpedo battery that complimented the guns. Source: The Sinking of the Blucher, Haarr & Melien 2023
Hey Drach, not sure if this is the right place to ask these questions but.
During a ship of the line engagement during the age of sail, how likely were you to be killed/wounded depending on where in the ship you are and where (if anywhere) would have been a safe place to be.
44:22 Alternatively, install a dual-purpose catapult which can launch both aircraft and torpedoes! :D
Where do you put torpedoes on a u.s. cruiser? On the accompanying destroyers...
My being this early is proof I'm up way too early on a weekend.
What's with the trees on the Bouvet??
At first I was sure they were behind the ship but no, they are almost certainly on the ship. I'm curious what is going on there as well.
What are some good books on the Anglo-Dutch Naval War?
Why does a French pre-Dreadnought have Cookie Monster eyes?
Because “B is for biscuit that’s good enough for me.”
TIL the power of Jarrah wood. Would early 19th century steam/water powered saws be able to handle it, or would you need specifically MODERN power tools.
You could cut it with period tools, you'd either have to shape it green or just go through a lot of tools
@@DrachinifelHave you discussed apitong? I know it was popular for heavy duty trailer decks? Sorry if I missed it
So if a country wanted cheekily get around the Washington naval treaty could it build significant amounts of large coastal encampments even if it was never intended to be pulled out to learn and experiment with different loaders, barrel manufacturing, traversal speeds, etc
Regarding MN Hoche, how do you say "C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!" in French?
Ash would be terrible as a ship's keel; far too prone to rotting when kept damp.
Teak makes superb keel material.
TBF, the third class protected cruiser looks a lot like a Flower Class sloop. And those were dead useful.
To a degree, the difference being that noone expected a Flower class to fight anything than subs and the odd patrol aircraft. 3rd class cruisers theoretical should and sometimes did end up facing down full on warships
@Drachinifel Should have named them after unwarlike, like small rodents or various species of grass.
But more seriously, when the 3rd class cruisers were fitted out correctly and not thrown at non-peer opponents, they typically performed ok. Kind of like taking a 3 masted sloop and seeing how it would do against Constitution or Indefatigable. Yes, they're both cruisers....
If they insist on having torpedoes on US cruisers, then it makes sense that they remove main guns to make room for it. It's the main guns that aren't cutting it, why would you remove the AA guns? The question as stated just doesn't make sense.
HMS Defiant
Su Haili *sp. 100% Indian teak
Foolish Drach, you should have built your wood should of some of the rare wood from New Zealand, you could have sold e wood in the ship and bought a fleet of Normal ships.....
I'm early! Yay!
24th, 15 December 2024