Old Tools – Beetle and Hawser

Hawser top and beetle...the tools used to make the final seal in the seams of large wooden ships. Photo courtesy of Jeff Pearson Antique Tools.

Sealing the deck and hull seams of large wooden ships with planking more than 2 3/4” thick requires a tool that can deliver the needed powerful blow. That tool was the beetle. Effectively a heavy version of the mallet used to drive caulking into the seams of smaller wooden vessels.

The beetle was made of live oak or white oak with a 1 ¼ “ diameter wood handle. The 3” diameter and several iron reinforcing bands the brought the weight up to at least five pounds. The hawser is a specialized caulking iron on an iron handle. The caulking end rotated in the handle from 90 to 360 degrees which facilitated caulking the butt seams between plank ends that are perpendicular to the rest of the seam. The hawser thickness used is the same width of the seam so that the oakum is not squeezed out past the edge of the hawser blade.

The use of the beetle required more care than a conventional caulking iron. The potential power needed to be restrained otherwise the hawser could blow through the seam on the back side. A mistake for which there was no ideal solution since the ceilings, the inner wall of the hull, would have already been installed. When caulking thick planking two to three rows or layers of cotton are set with a regular caulking mallet and caulking iron. Then three to four rows of oakum are set before the beetle and hawser are used to make the final set in a seam.

Two people worked a beetle and a hawser. One person holding and moving the hawser in half the width of the hawser edge increments, commonly 2” with a 4” wide blade. The other striking the hawser with just the right force at just the right time. Jeff Pearson worked on caulking crews at the Mystic Seaport for 16 years. He said after a time caulkers got a feel for what they were doing. A pair of caulkers, he said, would develop a rhythm. Striking the hawser with the beetle, moving the hawser a half width and striking again. Maybe a second or two between blows in steady beat, switching positions regularly.

Pearson said when he worked on the restoration of the 1841 whaling ship Charles W. Morgan at Mystic Seaport, a crew of 6 caulked most of the day before spending the last few hours of the day painting the seams they had just caulked. There is no other way to create the final factor that makes a large wooden ship a ship, which is watertightness.

The Charles W. Morgan is currently on a ceremonial sail in southern New England. There is a plan for the Morgan to sail in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans where it hunted whales from 1841 to 1929. Heavily built to withstand northern ice and southern storms it is the oldest commercial vessel afloat and the second oldest sailing ship after the U.S.S. Constitution.