21. There was a story on shipbuilding, with details about the materials used to make them, including the adze and oakum . 22. Oakum was at one time recycled from old tarry ropes and cordage, which were painstakingly unravelled and taken apart into fibre.23. Charles Dickens's novel " Oliver Twist " mentions the extraction of oakum by orphaned children in the workhouse. 24. Semi-punitive labour also included oakum -picking : teasing apart old tarry rope to make caulking material for sailing vessels. 25. However, conditions were better and healthier than at made to do work such as picking oakum ( tarred rope ) and weaving. 26. Others picked oakum using a large metal nail known as a spike, which may be the source of the workhouse's nickname. 27. Traditional caulking ( also spelled calking ) on wooden vessels uses fibers of cotton and oakum ( hemp fiber soaked in pine tar ). 28. If you can't find oakum , use 3 / 8-inch Polyfoam Caulk Saver, which is what Frost King calls it. 29. What disturbs Delano are incidents he observes among the hatchet polishers, oakum pickers, such as when a black boy stabs a white one. 30. It was later thought that the fire was caused by candle snuff being dropped on oakum when an officer and boy had entered the hold.
