Doors

[Don Case]

Did 18th century English wooden ships have step over door sills?

[allanyed]

Don,

Which doors?    Doors to cabins, through  bulkheads at the QD and FC break, removeable bulkheads, beakhead bulkhead pantries, storage lockers, etc?  Bulkheads and the set up of doors and even how they opened varied.   

 

When in the 18th century?  There were many changes in 1757.   

 

Allan 

 

 

 

[Don Case]

I give up. You have to know the answer before you can ask the question.

[druxey]

No, don't give up, You have to be specific to get a specific answer. So:

 

1) Date or date range

2) Nationality (don't assume we know!)

3) In the case of a doorway, where in the vessel? The answer will be different if it's in the hold/platforms, a gun deck or weather deck.

 

The more defined the question, the better the responses will be.

[allanyed]

Don,

Many of the members do a TON of research on things like this before asking.  I think it is easier at times to ask here, but honestly, there is sooooo much to be learned by researching as much as you can before hand and the answers could be pages long.    As mentioned before, every time I go to my books looking for an answer to a question like yours I learn ten other things that will all come into play sometime in the future.   I think you have the start of a good library, but consider Goodwin (Construction and Fitting of the English Man of War) and Lavery (Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War) if you don't already have them.  There are others as well, but for me these have been extremely helpful.  If you are going to get into rigging for the 18th century, seriously consider Lees as well.    Everyone here loves to help all the other members when they can, but as Druxey pointed out, please don't expect a simple answer when there is none to be given because the question is so broad.   

Allan 

[Gregory]

Doors?  On a boat/ship?

 

😁

[Jim Lad]

Gregory, doors everywhere on a boat/ship!!

 

John

[allanyed]

Just remember the old joke, about no screen doors on a submarine.

[DaveBaxt]

Don. Please do not give up as it is something I have not thought of but would really like to know. Let me explain. I am a beginner with only one period build under my belt and have asked more questions than I would care to admit. Did I always get to know what I wanted to hear. Well not at first but then again I always got the correct answer in the end.. Once I realized that there is never one answer and quickly realized that people are unable to give you a straight answer until they know whtat type of ship you are building and as  procisely as possible when the ship was built, even the name of the ship you are building can help.. I am not hear to have a go at you in anyway shape or form as I have been guilty of asking similar types of question my self. Hope this helps in any way . Best regards from a novice .Dave 

[allanyed]

Don,  Alas, frustration is part and parcel to model ship building at times, especially in scratch building.  Even kits can be frustrating as  has been so often seen in the build logs, but it is all part of the learning process.   I have never built a kit but spent the equivalent amount of money of several big kits on books and even with my library built up over the years, I still get frustrated a few times each session at the bench.  I am in the process of learning Fusion 360 and you cannot imagine the frustration I have gone through the past week or so, not to mention the frustration with me that a fellow member here has probably gone through trying to teach me the basics.   It will come together.   I had my first success with Fusion when a bulb went off in my head when I awoke this very morning and conquered the latest drawing task and the few minutes of satisfaction far outweighed the hours of frustration.   

You are some months into your project and have made huge progress, so keep at it!   

Allan

Edited June 29, 2021 by allanyed

[Gregory]

10 hours ago, Jim Lad said:

Gregory, doors everywhere on a boat/ship!!

 

John

 

 

I suppose you were never in the US Navy or Marines..

 

Wish I had a nickel for every push-up I did for calling a companionway or hatch a door...😁

[Bill Hudson]

12 minutes ago, Gregory said:

 

 

I suppose you were never in the US Navy or Marines..

 

Wish I had a nickel for every push-up I did for calling a companionway or hatch a door...😁

Don't forget "walls, floors and stairs."

[Gregory]

You left out " ceiling "..

 

To be accurate..  Some doors on ships are called doors.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Gregory

[Don Case]

I did do a bunch of research via google and did find out that a door is a door. A hatch goes through the deck. Steel did mention the construction of a door, captains I think, but no mention of a step over sill. Steel can be difficult to navigate. There was no mention of doors in Scantlings index. I found the door construction by paging through the book. Not an easy task with those pages🙂 No mention of doors in Longridge.

Anyway this was just a curiosity question because a lot of the google searching mentioned tripping over stepover sills

[Chuck Seiler]

2 hours ago, Gregory said:

I suppose you were never in the US Navy or Marines..

I was never in the Navy in the 18th century, only the 20th. Back then they actually had doors, as has been discussed.  Openings from one deck to another were hatches.  Even today, after the advent of watertight compartmentation, the hole that I walk through to get from one space to another is secured with a water tight door.  As DCA I had to buy enough of them to know.

[Roger Pellett]

Back in the day when Officers using US Navy Officer’s Clubs could just sign their drink tabs and be billed later, a famous alias used by deadbeats was “WT Door.”

 

Ships were built by Shipwrights.  After launch they were towed to the outfitting pier to be finished by jointers, a different trade.  To find details about internal fitting out of ships you will need to look beyond Steele.  The best reference that I know of is Lavery’s Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War.

Roger

Edited June 29, 2021 by Roger Pellett

[Tim Holt]

15 hours ago, Jim Lad said:

Gregory, doors everywhere on a boat/ship!

Created by cutting holes in walls - just like they did for the windows.  Often if you take the stairs up to the next floor on the boat you can observe this better.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Tim Holt

[Tim Holt]

23 hours ago, Don Case said:

Did 18th century English wooden ships have step over door sills?

 

Just trying to use logic (and not history), irrespective of the year, country, etc. it's always true that decks can become awash - some more than others.  So it makes sense to always have have a sill or continuation of coaming without a direct opening down to below decks for water.  Obviously if you don't, water's going to come in if the opening isn't fully sealed. 

 

I'd imagine any ship without a sill would get soaked now and then, and the ship's carpenter would grab some scrap of wood and nail it on to stop "that dammed water from coming in because some SOB thought opening the door when the deck was awash was a good idea."

Edited June 29, 2021 by Tim Holt
A sentence seems to have been

[Jim Lad]

Gregory, being Australian, no, I was never in the U.S. navy, but the Merchant Navy certainly has a lot of doors! 

 

Don, this is later than you're asking for, but this very early photo shows a door under the poop of a ship of the 1840's with a deep sill under the door.

 

John.

 

[Chuck Seiler]

3 hours ago, Tim Holt said:

Created by cutting holes in walls - just like they did for the windows.  Often if you take the stairs up to the next floor on the boat you can observe this better.

    I can live with 'doors' depending on the situation, but I have to balk at walls (bulkheads), windows (ports), floors (decks) and boats (ships). 

 

Okay, windows if associated with transom and quarter galleries. 

 

Okay, floors if talking about the lower-most part of a frame.

 

Okay, stairs if you are talking about what you do at a group of women after a long time at sea.  Or would that be stares?

[Roger Pellett]

Chuck,

 

Here on the Great Lakes, we have our own nomenclature.  Ships regardless of their size, including the thirteen 1000 footers in the fleet are called boats.  Or more commonly “Ore Boats.”  The speed at which they travel is measured in Miles Per Hour and they do have windows as well as round portholes.

 

Roger

Edited June 29, 2021 by Roger Pellett

[Chuck Seiler]

Oh, the humanity!!!!!!  😲

[Tim Holt]

3 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

The speed at which they travel is measured in Miles Per Hour

Not knots?  Naughty!

[Roger Pellett]

Yes,  and water depths in feet, not fathoms.