Milking Wood Does Your Boat Good
Note the dairy cow, why would a dairy cow be at a ship yard?
Well, well, ya can always learn something new. I need to go back a bit. Three days ago, I did a story on Southwind and the rail. I talked about using milk as a powerwashing fluid, and to be honest, it was just a joke about milking the story some more. Then Dan yesterday, seemed confused and asked why milk? I laughed, and then did some research and to my shock, milk is, or was used on boats, dateing back to the 1700’s. Who knew? Loooongtime fellow Woody Boater Randy commented ” The ‘milk’ washing technique was first tried on British warships on April 1, 1789 at HRH’s Dockyard in Greenwich, England. There was a serious drought that year, creating a severe shortage of fresh water, combined with a glut in the milk supply.”
In a small detail not commonly known, when Endeavor was damaged, the Island didnt have cows, so the sailors improvised and used Coconut Milk.
Of course we dug deeper. And come to find, the British Navy got the idea from the Dutch. And if you track that, it leads to the Pennsylvania Dutch and there use of Milk Paint. Really! Google it. So why Milk?
It’s still a thing.
Well, turns out milking the wood, not a porn term BTW. Perverts! Anyway, we all digressed, using milk ON wood, adds nutrients. And in areas where whale oil etc is or was not available, Milk was used. Fat, Protein and other stuff gets into the wood. Like an old fashion CPES epoxy.
Available in England, where they kinda love the traditional ways
Milking wood in todays world. The use of milk in a power washer is done in a kinda cool way. It has to be 100% whole milk, right from the dairy farm, no processed stuff. And it can be thinned out for the process of power washing, but just slightly. Then its blasted into the wood, over the paint if need be to fill in any small areas. Then allowed to cure. Right now for example, it stinks at the railway like..you guessed it. Rotten milk. But to the old school guys, they say it smells like new wood.
So, now you know the rest of the story. Now if you will excuse me, it’s really starting to stink around here!
I don’t even know what to say!🤷🏼♂️🤦🏻
Maybe it’s time for Matt’s favorite milker.
I’m glad my ignorance could be of assistance! It comes in handy sometimes, I guess. It ended up being a good story. I learned something today…it’s a good day, and still early! I’m still not sure on how to comment on the photo Troy provided! Have a great day everyone!
” I’m still not sure on how to comment on the photo Troy provided!”……………….That happens a lot to all of us. That is why we love him.
ahhh ya a hmm ….not sure what to say here…maybe you could do a story on using Oreo cookies for sandpaper and the filling for natural 5200??
Dan, you are the man, you saved us all from a boring story today! I love me some milking
Glad to be of assistance!
I am lactose intolerant …. so I will stick with cpes. John in Va
If this is a thing, anyway, milk should never be allowed to get into any body of water. It displaces oxygen and will kill the fish.
They have been doing this for centurys. It would have killed all the fish by now.
Milk, in sufficient concentrations does displace oxygen in water. I’ve seen a milk tanker rolled over into a river and caused a major fish kill.
Not familiar with washing a boat with milk. Your penchant for embellishment leads me not to believe this.
All due respect.
Me thought – – Ah, warm up for April Fools
Wrong –
Really milking the story for today.
This is so British. Steal the idea from someone else. Do it for years. Improvise when in the Colonies. And now have a Benny Hill / Monty Python snicker snicker festival.
Wink wink nudge nudge know what I mean huh?
Still. Pretty innovative use of a natural product to preserve their stuff.
Washing with milk could be fun. I’m not going to comment on the Woodie part of it!
Skim, whole, or 2% ???
Whole Floyd
Many years ago milk paint was used to produce architectural renderings by the company that we used. Not sure if that is still the practice today though.
Stay tuned to Woodyboater for tomorrow’s story on how Hernando Cortes discovered and stained the side of his ship with Chocolate Milk.
Help me understand why a shortage of fresh water would lead to the use of milk. Decks are washed down with salt water after a rain to remove the fresh water. I thought fresh water is bad for wood and salt water is good for preserving wood.
Thats a great question Greg, I dont completly understand why there was a shortage of fresh water, and you are correct about salt water. What I kinda got out of the history of this is that milk was used. And it possibly over time they noticed how where the milk was used looked better. Randy may know why there was a fresh water shortage, and how this came about.