Posted by Diane Law on March 25, 2000 at 15:36:54:
In Reply to: Re: Bruce, here's a challenge posted by Scott Andrews on March 23, 2000 at 17:52:03:
: Doug,
: This is something I've been thinking about for a while. The only accurate way that I can think to determine this for ourselves (short of coming across decent color photos of such a deck surface, or someone with first-hand knowledge) would be by experimentation. One would need several dozen board feet of long leaf yellow pine board laid down outside, fully exposed to the elements, and convienient access to both the correct sort of cleaning equipment (holystones, etc.) and a ready supply of salt water, with which the wood would have to be cleaned on a regular basis. In addition to the foot traffic experienced, this is what would have produced the appearance and coloring of those decks.
According to The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, "A deck scoured by holystones and then washed down with salt water quickly takes a smooth even surface and the wood becomes almost white."
Certainly, if you look at the Father Brown photos that show the deck, they look very light indeed. Only in those pictures where the deck is shaded by overhanging roofs does it look very dark at all, so it seems we could attribute that purely to shadows. On the other hand, I don't think that painting decks with an "almost white" color would
be appropriate or look very good. Still, a light
color is probably more accurate than a dark one.
My personal opinion (which is probably not worth
more than I'm charging for it at the moment), is that the decks would have had a somewhat yellowish
cast, but still would be quite light. The graying
that comes with weathering doesn't go very deep and with regular scrubbing would probably not be a
dominant hue. I would think that new yellow pine
would probably be a better approximation than older yellow pine (which darkens with time, even when kept indoors and thus protected from graying). A holystone was sandstone, so
regular holystoning would mean a constant sanding
that would continually uncover a new "layer" of
fresh wood.
Diane