Painting the Deck

[Wagga]

This is actually an excerpt from my book "Running For Home":

We all fell into the usual pattern of watch keeping, constant maintenance and gallons of paint. During one of these painting marathons, an incident occurred that I will never forget. There were two of us painting the deck on the port side of the ship. It was gloss black. We both had rollers on broom sticks and a cut down 50 gallon drum with the paint in. We were making good progress but it was windy on deck and sometimes a little paint would get blown onto our overalls. Every so often we would push the drum of paint along with the roller on the broomstick. This was the best and most convenient way of moving it. I was careful in doing this as I didn’t want to spill any. My mate regarded this as too cautious and was exasperated with me. He said “Just shove it like this”. Unfortunately, as he did so, the drum came up abruptly against a weld in the deck. The paint leapt out of the drum, the wind caught it, the paint exploded into a cloud of black spray. He was covered comprehensively from head to toe in black paint. Laugh? I nearly had kittens. He looked like something out of the Black and White Minstrel Show.

[Captain Kong]

I have painted many a deck BUT the worst one was on a Shell T2 Tanker, the Tectus. 1954.
We didnt use black paint it was a substance called PF4, I think it was a residue of Crude Oil.
We also painted over the wall with it. The fumes off it burned all our eyes, everyone of the deck crowd got conjunctivitus, Our eyes were swollen and none of us could see properly, , very painful, we didnt do any look outs, or any work for quite a while.
Did anyone else ever come across PF4 .??
Cheers
Brian

[John Pruden]

i liked the job of barbarising and linseed oiling the smell? then of course the lower decks paint paint and more paint!!!!!

[Calvin Kent]

My first trip to sea the bosun told me to oil and then boot-top the crew messes, pantry, and alleyway after dinner. I got an early turn to the next morning and was presented with a bucket of white spirit and a rather harsh lecture on the difference between boiled and fish oil.

[Chris Allman]

OH that brings back memories, Boiled Oil, Fish Oil, Linseed Oil, Red Lead, Turks Heads, Dogs Legs, Man Helpers, Deck Scrubbers , Boot Topping, Topside White, Flat White, Oh and I nearly forgot, Varnish.

Must have missed a lot more

[Charlie Hannah]

I was on the Arakaka,we were taking,animals back to the Uk for a well known TV personality.Job for the day painting the deck,a little wild pig escaped its cage jumped up on no1 hatch raced across to the port side were we were painting slipped on the coaming and slid along the deck finished with a red backside,the well known personality wanted to sue the deck crowd.He had no sense of humour at all.We had a real laugh trying to catch the little blighter to clean him up.

[happy daze john in oz]

OH that brings back memories, Boiled Oil, Fish Oil, Linseed Oil, Red Lead, Turks Heads, Dogs Legs, Man Helpers, Deck Scrubbers , Boot Topping, Topside White, Flat White, Oh and I nearly forgot, Varnish.

Must have missed a lot more

I think most of us would be quite happy with a beer or a Scotch, som eof that sounds it bit extreme, but what ever turns you on mate.

[E.Martin]

Did anyone else ever come across PF4 .??

I can remember painting the tank decks with PF4 while on the Theliconus in 1951,I think I can remember being
told that PF4 was anti spark?

[gwynfor]

I also was on t2 shell tanker 1950 ,and remember using that P F 4 and the fumes. Talking of fumes ,we went down the tanks,to clean up the sludge after a cargo of crude ,evry now and were given a tot of rum to compansate. Didnt they use a gadget called the Butterworth ,spun by water pressure before starting? The Neocardia, was my first and last tanker. I stuck with cargo after that.

[Captain Kong]

Hi Gwynfor,
That PF4 was evil,
They do not use Butterworth water cleaning for tanks now They discovered that static electricity builds up and a drop of water can cause an explosion. this was tested after a couple of Shell Tankers exploded.
We used crude oil to wash the tanks in the ESSO VLCCs with Butterworth gear. This is done whilst the tank is being discharged, a branch line comes off the main discharge line to the Butterworh machine, and blasts every thing all down the sides and bottom of the tank and so all the sludge is churned up and goes ashore with the cargo, the tanks are left spotless.
Cheers
Brian