[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: (TFT) Pirates! ships

----- Original Message ----- From: "Margaret Tapley" 


I've found reference to white oak and yellow pine being used for
framing larger ships.
And I'm not really sure what yellow pine actually IS as there are a number of species from several regions of the world that get called yellow pine. 



I don't know if you allow New World species in your campaign, but
while you're building ships you might consider live oak as an
alternative to white. Live oak requires a slightly warmer climate to
grow, but its wood was very much in demand for shipbuilding, "possibly
second only to teak for the best maritime wood worldwide". (quote:
Remarkable Plants of Texas, Turner). It's said to last up to five
times longer than white oak. A famous example of how tough it is: The
USS Constitution earned its nickname Old Ironsides when British
cannonballs reportedly *bounced off* the hull, which was made of live
oak planks.
Yes indeed, and the only wood I've found a stronger compression strength (parallel to the grain) for so far is black locust. 
uhhh...
Here's something I did for TFT Baseball on bats breaking in the majors.
1 per game in '08, down to 0.5 this year due to stricter manufactures requirements from the league. Why not use ash bats that just tend to crack rather than break instead of useing maple that splinters? Ash is a ring porous species with a two part ring that has a section of porous early growth cells that gives the bat more flex and leads to flaking along the outside grain over a few weeks of professional use (assuming the player doesn't swing at any bad pitches over the working life of the bat). As such, an ash bat requires narrow, even grain to perform reliably and such growth requires years of consistent weather conditions to provide the necessary wood quality. Varying weather conditions combined with over harvesting and a blight on ash in america over the last decade or so have combined to greatly diminish the quantity of suitable ash for bats. 
Sugar maple is a nonporous species that is 5 to 10% harder than ash.
Because of the lack of porous early growth cells in maple the grain consistency is not as critical as with ash and maple bats can last for months instead of weeks. What's funny about all of this is that baseball bats DO seem to have an "edge". If we think of the grain of a bat something like a deck of cards then a bat has a flat side to the grain and an edge side. Ash bat makers print their logo on the flat side of the grain and tell batters to hit with the logo up, which means contact is made against the edge side of the grain (with a proper swing). 
This prevents flaking extending bat life.
However the flat side of wood grain is up to 30% stronger than the edge side, ash included, and with a nonporous wood the flat grain side of the bat would be a better point of contact than the edge grain. I'd suggest manufactures print their logos on the edge side of their maple bats grain and continue to tell hitters to contact logo up. 
That or just give up the wood which will always be somewhat variable.
Oh and birch from Canada is now in the mix with properties somewhat between ash and maple. 
And that brings me to this with some good data for new world woods.
http://www.bullybats.com/wooden_bats.php


The Constitution, as you probably know, is still afloat
and being sailed around occasionally (impressive, given that wood
likes to rot in contact with water).


More of that tar, doped with lead powder for under the waterline.
And I thought felt hat makers had problems...



As you also mention,
any fantasy wood that has a number of desirous properties is likely to go the way of the Dodo. 
If the wood in elf trees is soooo much better in every measure than
anything else then unless elf wood trees are by far the most common
trees in the world the elves better be VERY protective of their
groves.
Kindda like, when there are potions out there that require
components from human bodies the human graveyard keeper better be
very tough the elves will pretty much need a fixed perimeter and
that requires a large population for a large area.
You can't get Burma teak for shipbuilding anymore.


Interesting point. With respect to live oaks, one possible reason why
there are still huge live oaks around (they're pretty slow growing,
with the oldest being 500+ years old) is that there wasn't a very long
interval, relatively speaking, between the time they were discovered
as shipbuilding timber and the time when wooden warships became
obsolete. It also helped that, during most of this period, their
natural range (the southern US) was backwoods territory with little or
no infrastructure for getting the timber out.

Another reason live oaks weren't completely logged out might be the
extreme hardness of their wood (one of the toughest woods in
existence). This is one of the things that makes it such a desirable
wood for shipbuilding, but also makes it very difficult to work. If
the best wood around takes two or three times as long to cut into the
right shape pieces, plus you have to replace your tools more
frequently because the harder wood makes them wear out faster, you
might well settle for second best.

Maybe the elf wood trees work great once they're made into ships, but
the wood is so hard only elves know how to work it, and they're not
telling...


Good point.
And if you live up in the branches you might resent you home being made into anything else at all... 
lol

Also, Nat Geo channel had 'The Truth Behind Noah's ark' on today.
I got this ref. for bronze age sea going boats.
http://www.canterburytrust.co.uk/hilights/d_boat.htm

The programe made a point of showing how stitched plank construction works.
Under those methods you only get two planks out of one tree.
It's pretty much a result of the tools that were available at the time.
Really big trees were just outta the question.
Having moved from south Louisiana to north west Oregon I can see how methods that work in one region might not do well in another.
If I recall properly from all my skimscanning this morning there were only 10 Victory class ships produced by the british in the 18th century. 
Victory herself wasn't commisioned until the American revolution.
In general, these ships were built for specific conflicts.
I have national leaders like kings Actions taking place on a scale similar to that of Civilization type games. 
Ordering a city to "build" a ship is an Action that takes years of time.
A players Figure likely won't care much from day to day unless the player wants their Figure to captian the ship or etc.
I'll also note that big live oaks are just pretty with the spanish moss and the huge canopies. 
Asthetics may be reason enough to preserve some of them.
Of course, if players are working to perserve trees then the Dark Lord and his ilk are working to take them...
Until you know how much wood is available and at what rate it can be produced then you can't really put a monatary value on a finished wood product. 
And I haven't even mentioned disasters like forest fires.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillamook_Burn

All of this mess from the question;
"What ST is needed to punch through a woodframed house wall?"
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"