Stopwater Piece
 
 

Here is extraordinarily rare artifact that comes directly from Titanic's D-deck. It was affixed to a storage room partition in the galley, close the the edge of the door frame. Through intense research and hours of investigating, this small stiff piece of canvas can be confidently identified as a "Stopwater." To get an understanding what this was used for, time-era ship building manuals give this exact definition:

STOPWATER (In riveted ships) - A packing of felt or canvas and red lead used to prevent water from passing through metal parts where calking is impracticable.

This packing is typically seen where plates overlap, around rivets or where an extra watertight sealant was needed. It was applied as a loose material, covered and/or soaked then hardened to form a tight seal. Other materials known to be used as a stopwater, depending on the type or construction of the ship were burlap, linseed oil and tar.

 
 

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