ARIZONA deck color

I guess I stand - deliberate choice of words! - corrected. The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea says (regarding the holystone name origin) "seaman had to use holystones on hands and knees to get a good result. Large holystones were known among seamen as 'bibles'; smaller ones...were 'prayer books' and these names certainly came into use because seamen had get down on their hands and knees while using them."

But in my time the bricks had a hole drilled in them and were operated by inserting a length of broom handle in the hole, grasping the handle with the left hand well down on it, locking the handle inside both elbows, grabbing the handle higher up with the right hand, and putting your full weight on the stone while stroking back and forth (while standing). I found a reference that says holystoning was forbidden by a General Order in 1931 because it wore down the decks too quickly but my back well remembers that holystoning  was alive and well in 1953!

Well, I was a holystone operator - "40 strokes to the board" on the quarterdeck - aboard USS New Jersey (BB 62) on my Youngster midshipman cruise. What a chore - particularly if you were a lttle late to muster and got a short stick. But holystoning is done standing up and was done so in the RN also. The name comes from the shape of the  stones - they were the size and shape of the ship's Bible.

I don't know where the bricks came from in Jack Aubrey's RN but in the USN of the '50s we used boiler brick.

Holystoned teak is a unique color. Polished wood decking is often called 'bright'.

Rusty White got it close in this photo which accompanys his article on SteelNavy



http://www.steelnavy.com/wood%20deck.htm

Dry, unweathered teak has a rich red/orange/brown cast to it. When it is wet it gets to be more of a darker red-brown color. Teak weathers to a tannish gray.

Up to the WWII period, part of the daily ritual of seamen was to polish the deck with a sandstone brick. It was not as much a punishment as what was expected of a seaman. Most often this effort was done on a sailor's knees like he was praying - the brick became known as the holy stone and the process known as holystoning the decks. The process was especially important on captial ships shich as battleships where appearance was everything. The tradition started in the sailing navy days, particulary with Great Britain. Keep the sailor occupied with work and he won't have time to think how hungry and bored he is or to plot to overthrow the officers

Crusiers had proportionately less wood and small ships such as destroyers only had wood on small topside spaces such as the bridge.

wouldn't tan work good

QUOTE: Originally posted by ltfahey There was an Navy War Department order of staining all decks in the during the late summer or fall of 41, Battleships on the East coast had their teak decks stained. Due to the Pac Fleet move to Hawaii I don't know which ships made the change or not.

BB-39 Arizona had unpainted teak. The only BB's at PH with painted decks were probably Nevada and possibly Tennessee. In the Atlantic no BB's had painted decks the summer of 1941, in the fall we photos of Idaho and Mississippi off Iceland in Ms2 but no high angle shots, likely they had unpainted decks in that scheme. BB-55 North Carolina did her trials and workups prior to her "final" AA fit in 1941 in Ms12 with unpainted decks. BB-56 Washington I don't recall what she wore in 1941.

There was an Navy War Department order of staining all decks in the during the late summer or fall of 41, Battleships on the East coast had their teak decks stained. Due to the Pac Fleet move to Hawaii I don't know which ships made the change or not.

According to the USN painting instructions for Measure 1, the wooden decks were not to be painted or stained. Rather they would be in "bright" teak. The sailors would sand the decks with sandstone blocks called holystones. The process is called holystoning the decks. The steel decks in Measure 1 would have been painted in 5-D Dark Gray.

Best out of the bottle solution for bright teak - White Ensign Models Teak enamel