Color of capstan, bitts and other deck furniture on, say, HMS Vanguard

[BikerMart]

I trolled through the topics and couldn't see an answer to this, so please excuse if this has been answered before.

I have some pictures that I took of HMS Victory in 2008 and most of the 'furniture' appears to be stained dark wood - although the belfry appears to be painted black.

I see that some modelers have just varnished the bare wood from the kit - walnut, say.

And yet others paint the fittings in red ochre.

I am guessing then that there is no real 'correct' color, and that how the furniture is finished is at the modelers' discretion?

 

[allanyed]

BM

Your post gave me pause so I just looked at photos of several dozen contemporary models at Preble Hall and more at RMG.  I can find no rhyme or reason to the choice of colors on the furniture, or the bulwarks for that matter.   Of course cost was a factor so black and red seems to be the most common colors where paint was used.   There are some with hatch coamings and head ledges in natural wood, others that are black.  Half the bulwarks are painted red, the remainder without paint of any color.  Some have bitts and such that are predominantly red or natural, a few that are black.    Some had a good amount of gold in the 17th century and into the early 18th century but this is pretty much limited to carvings.   I also went back to a number of contemporary contracts and none had any mention of paint colors.  What ship and year do you have in mind?   Again, there does not seem to be a lot of consistency when looking at contemporary models (which more than likely have had their paint redone over the hundreds of years they have been around)  so your comment on modeler's discretion, within reason, may very well be valid.  

Allan

[mtaylor]

Somewhere I read that after the ship was commissioned, it was up the Captain to provide the paint for the ship's upkeep.  If this were true, then would be up to him to spend money and also his pride on a good-looking "ship shape" vessel. I've also read that much of what is "gold" on most models was actually yellow ochre.

[BikerMart]

Thanks for the replies. HMS Vanguard is the ship in question - though hopefully others will follow if time and finances in my retirement allow of it.

This captain has a supply of both poly varnish and red ochre, so I think that I will use the poly on the capstan, bitts and coamings. Red ochre for the bulwarks.

Interestingly, the pictures that I have of the Victory, from 2008, show both inner bulwarks and gun carriages in yellow ochre! Hmm.

 

[Beef Wellington]

Remember that 'period' is also a factor here as paint options changed significantly over time and all we can refer to are really 'trends', certainly in the Royal Navy, and to Mark's comment above would be somewhat driven by the cost and availability of paint.  There was no 'standard' to know how a specific ship was painted, looking at models in the NMM online archive will show quite a bit of variety between models of the same period.  Red and yellow ochres were cheap(er) options in mid to late 18th century so would likely have been more commonplace being mixed by the painters whether onboard or in dockyards.  In the Royal Navy, green and white became more common going into the 19th century as materials advanced, fashions changed, and the cost of paint became economically viable.  I'm sure Vanguard probably went through many repaints and would have looked different at each.  The hulls of ships were definitely unique, and helped in identification, until the nelson chequer became ubiquitous.

[dafi]

If one looks at 12 pounder carriage of St. George at Thorsminde of 1811, one could imagine seeing a red paint overpinted with yellw ochre 🙂

 

This would represent my understanding that slowly the color was changed around 1800 from red to yellow.

 

Look for yourselves.









XXXDAn

Edited August 20, 2022 by dafi

[Mark P]

Good Morning BM;

 

Following on from replies above, I have looked through my pictures of models from the NMM and the Science Museum, all of which I have photographed out of their cases, and with few exceptions they have inside bulwarks and bitts etc painted with red ochre. A series of contemporary paintings in the Kriegstein Collection, showing models of many different types of ship, all show the same thing. One of the ships depicted is the 74 gun Valiant of 1759. 

 

The exceptions in my models photographed, which number only three in total, are either unpainted, or have the fittings painted black, and the bulwarks red. 

 

There are two painted views of the 'Valiant' of 1790 in the NMM collection, but I have been unable to find images of them (the new website is simply awful to try and use) They are undoubtedly there somewhere, though, so you may be able to find them. They are shown, in black and white, in Brian Lavery's book 'Building the Wooden Walls', which describes the building of the 'Valiant'. 

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

 

 

[Dr PR]

I have searched through many books looking for guidance for paint colors on ships. So far I haven't found much. Large expensive ships were tricked out with details and colors. Smaller ships, especially merchant vessels, were often pretty drab.

 

As others have said, the colors seem to have been up to the Captain or ship owner. Cost was a factor, as was availability of paints. Black, white, yellow, brown and red seem to have been common in the mid to late 1700s. Some blue and green started appearing in the 1800s.

 

I wonder if the red paint was actually red lead? This was used on exposed wood to prevent rotting. White lead mixed with tallow was an inexpensive way to protect the underwater parts of hulls. Copper sheeting was much more expensive.

 

Brown may have been just the color of oiled or greased wood, especially on the masts of fore-and-aft vessels with mast bands for the sails.

 

In the first quarter of the 1800s white started replacing the yellow on hull exteriors. By the mid 1800s deck furniture, mast heads and other details were painted white.

 

My opinion (and it is just that) is that the modeller can do whatever seems best if there is no specific period information about the colors used on a particular ship at a particular time.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Dr PR