Forward staterooms on Adeck

[Daniel Klistorner]

Actually A32 was not "posh" at all. If you have the Eaton and Haas book, they have a picture of a cabin they called A21, that's exactly what A32 would have looked like as well, along with the majority of the A deck cabins.

Regards,

Daniel.

 

[Dave Hudson]

Hello,
Sorry to butt in the conversation, but was the stench of paint really that bad? Do you all mean indoor or outdoor paint? If outdoor, I would think that passengers would want to close their windows. If indoor, I doubt that it was a problem. If the smell was bad enough for them to open their windows, we would have heard about it through an account. I side with Rolf.
By the way, I don't have that particular picture with me. Are all the windows open, or just some?
Daniel,
I think that Armour meant POSH, not posh. POSH is an acronym for Port Out Starboard Home. Someone else could probably give you a better history on it than I. Sorry to interupt the debate.
David.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>but was the stench of paint really that bad?<<

Bluntly, yes.

Or at least it could be. Paint used on ships has to do more then decorate, it has to preserve and protect from the corrosive environment of salt air and water.

If memory serves, the paints used were all oil based and the fumes can be eye watering to put it mildly. If anything, it's even worse today despite coatings which are asserted to be "environmentally friendly". You still need a good primer so the coating will adhere to metal, and these epoxy primers like the ones I mentioned earlier can be murder.

Been there, done that in the shipyards!

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Lester Mitcham]

David,

Armour said: I also get the impression that A-32 would have been quite "POSH,".... To me that is quite different to saying that Rood was travelling POSH; as in Port Out Starboard Home. My understanding of the term is that it was used when travelling to the Far East and then back home.

When applying POSH as in Port Out Starboard Home to Titanic which rule are you applying? While Titanic was outward bound; many of her passengers including Rood were on their way home; so was Rood Porting Out or Starboarding Home? Would you have given him in a port side room or a starboard side room?

Lester

 

[Dave Hudson]

Micheal,
Are there any accounts of the smell? Why would you need a good primer for paint on metal in rooms A 1-4? If you mean the painted outside wall, wouldn't passengers want to close their windows to keep out the stench? Also, wouldn't the ship have been painted long before April 10? Is there any record of a last minute paint job to A Deck?
Lester,
If A 32 was Rood's cabin, he was Starboarding Home (he did live in the US).
David.

 

[Lester Mitcham]

Thank you David. However, A-32 was a port side room.
Lester

 

[Rolf Vonk]

Hi Guys,

Actually I'm going to doubt at the *painting* of first class rooms short before the maiden voyage now this thread is started again. David thanks for opening my eyes! You told about the painted metalwalls in rooms A1-A4. Well, these rooms were panneled in the style of white painted wood as we see in all the other *normal* staterooms. There wasn't even a need to paint these walls like the metal walls in third class, cause you hide them behind a good-looking paneling. I think that the paneling was painted before it was installed in the rooms. I really don't believe that somebody had to paint al those stateroom- and suiteroomwalls after the carpenter was gone. What a terrible job! It would be far more easier to paint the details of the wonderful suiteroom-panneling in the workshop and beside it spares a lot of time and creates more space for the people who have to install or fit other parts of the furniture in the rooms. And that's why I'm pretty sure the paint on the walls wouldn't have smelled that bad. In that point I agree with David, cause I'm sure people would have mentioned the terrible air of fresh paint in their rooms.

Many regards,
Rolf

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Hi David, I don't know if there are any specific accounts of the smell or even if it was especially bad by the time the ship took on passangers. Attitudes being what they were at the time, they may not have given it much thought to something that would have a modern day health/environmental inspector throwing fits!

The ship was essentially complete on April 1st 1912, although there were a few minor things here and there that needed to be done. After nearly a fortnight, the fumes would have gone down to a level where at worst, they would have been a minor nuisence. The sticking point is whether or not there were strong fumes inside...which is possible if any touching up had to be done regardless of whether it was paint for metal or laquers/varnishes for the wood. Last minute touch ups are a fact of life in any shipyard, if only to fix something the buyer finds to be sub-standard.

You need primer for metal no matter where it's painted, inside or out because the topcoat doesn't have the adhesion qualities of the primer.

As a caveat to Rolf's remarks, even if you were covering the bulheads with panaling, you assuredly would need some kind of coating for the metal as the idea is to protect it from the corrosive effects of salt air. Paint does this, wood panaling can't.

Whether or not H&W actually did this much is something we could question. However, I've served on several ships that had false bulkheads over the real ones, and what was underneath always had some kind of protective coating. Without it, rust takes over with a vengence

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart