[Jewelry making - Article 00066] - [Orchid] Seals and larceny [YAK]

[John Burgess]

========[ Invite a Friend - http://www.ganoksin.com/invite.htm  ]========


    G'day;   A little while ago ;-) when I was in the Royal Navy during
    WW2 I was 'volunteered' to join a party to go to the shore based bond
    store to collect the ships rum ration for the following month.  Now
    each two gallon stone rum jar was encased in wicker, stoppered with a
    cork hammered in to the neck coated with  red shellac sealing wax,
    and the Royal Navy seal impressed into the hot wax. 

    So we got the rum duly signed for by the senior rating and took it
    to a small empty hut we knew of.  We applied a little oil and
    surrounded the seal of one jar with putty pilfered from the
    carpenter's shop, mixed up some plaster of paris in an old tin, and
    poured it into the seal.  The plaster set in less than the time it
    took to smoke a cigarette, and the sealing wax chipped off the other
    jars.  We slammed each jar on a pile of sacks, which drove out the
    cork sufficiently to remove it.  Out came a half pint of rum, in went
    a half pint of water, back went the cork. The scraps of wax were
    melted over a match flame in a tobacco tin, poured over the corks,
    stamped with the plaster master seal - and back to the ship, the rum
    jars seemingly intact but each burglarious sailor with a beer bottle
    of stolen rum tucked into sea boot stockings and concealed under bell
    bottomed trousers. Nobody ever commented on the poor quality of the
    rum. Who said sailors are not resourceful? 

--
Cheers for now,
John Burgess;   johnb AT ts.co.nz of Mapua, Nelson NZ 

____________________________________________________________________
T h e   O r c h i d   L i s t
Open Electronic Forum for Jewelry Manufacturing Methods and Procedures
____________________________________________________________________
Orchid FAQ:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/faq.htm
Orchid Archives:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/archive
Orchid Galleries:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/gallery.htm
Invite a Friend:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/invite.htm
____________________________________________________________________
Tips From The Jeweler's Bench - Article Archive
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/tip_sear.htm
The Jeweler's Selected Bibliography List
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/jewelry-books
Buy Orchid Jewelry:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/shop
____________________________________________________________________
-Unsubscribe:
-Email: orchid-request AT ganoksin.com Body=unsubscribe subject=blank
____________________________________________________________________