Could my floor timbers be part of an old ship?

[Jon Maine]

No, not from a ship.

Well okay, highly unlikely that your morticed timber was from a ship.

More likely to be reused from another local use, i.e. demolished house or factory, or a wrongly set out piece from the carpenters yard.

 

[K8]

to answer an earlier post in the 1800s there was a ship building facility less than half a mile from my cottage so I suspect that the beam is a mast.

Is the beam round? If so, then perhaps you could be right. But if it's roughly square section, then I don't think the taper is irrefutable evidence of its having been a mast.
Trees taper too!

it is round (not machined round) and tapers too

 

[Jon Maine]

Go on then lets see a picture, we are intrigued now.

 

[K8]

(sorry I didn't mean to hyjack the original poster's question)

the beam in the foreground is a new Douglas Fir beam to support the floor above and it just fitted between the door and window lintels.

the old beam can be seen behind, this is the best photo I have, the left hand side is the end it tapers too. It is a really old hard peice of wood with little wood worn damage.

(not my doing the blood red staining, a future project to address the ceiling, the joists here are not old and replaced I believe during the 70s..)

 

[Penners]

Well, depends on your definition of round. From the photo, it looks like a beam that was perhaps cut out of a fairly small tree, and thus has lots of wane remaining on it. The taper would support this suggestion, too.

Or it could be a beam that had quite deep sapwood arrises that were worm-eaten, and have been extensively defrassed in the past.

Sorry, but I still find it difficult to believe that it's a mast.

 

[K8]

fair enough
I can only go on local history and what people know about the cottage going back some years and the location and available wood.
It does look more convincing in the flesh so to speak and less like a young tree trunk.

 

[Penners]

Your new Doug Fir king joist looks like a fine piece of work. Did you make/fit it?

 

[K8]

thanks
I have a builder/carpenter I use and was an 8" square peice. I would have liked it a good few inches deeper but that would have been too close to both the front and back door lintels.
Sadly the only boob was lime was not used to bed the ends in to the wall, however I think that at the time there was not a local supply for a hard enough lime based mix, there is now so other work can be lime based and has been.
the shakes are quite deep so rob me of a further inch in places of strength but it is a far betteer situation than before as the expanse was far too great without the extra beam.