Monday, May 23, 2011

My Darling Loves Porthole

The thick glass pane of a porthole window in a cruise ship room allows for the sleeping family within to get a good night’s rest, even as the violent storm rages just outside. Portholes are also installed in the crew’s lodgings a few feet down the hall. The sealing around the edge of a porthole window is perhaps the strongest on the boat, and it never allows water in while the glass pane wards off cold. A voyage across the ocean can be icy, and the proper installment of portholes can be a key factor in the success of the journey. The porthole has found such great success with sailors and maritime enthusiasts that many have chosen to have portholes in their homes in place of windows. Sailors and quirky designers alike have recognized the true beauty of the porthole window for many years.

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Because of their usually small size, porthole windows are prone to be placed higher up on a house. Garages and other small places such as sheds or car ports do well with a porthole window more than other structures. Portholes became a ship’s answer to the window through its resistance to shattering and small, compact shape that allowed for many of them to be put side by side in the hull. The size of portholes varied from ship to ship and room to room - a captain’s room would often have large portholes or actual windows instead. Interestingly enough, portholes are never referred to by their original name in federal documents, and are instead called ‘side scuttles’. The name of ‘side scuttle’ was one of the very earliest names for the porthole upon its first introduction to the ship building industry. Even though the word porthole has port in its name, the porthole window can be found on the starboard side of the ship as well. Because of the way portholes were made in ancient times, it was far easier to put them in the port side of the hull than starboard.

Portholes have two components to them - the rim and the glass pane that sits within the rim. Sealing the glass to the metal was quite the task in earlier years, and everything from sap to lacquer was used. While a ship was seagoing, keeping the portholes from leaking water into the hull was the paramount concern to many builders. While in production, a porthole’s pane and rim are melded with almost no chance of breakage by machines.

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Today, brass and bronze rims are considered the absolute best metal to use when constructing a rim, but often another metal is used, plating it with brass. Brass and bronze have naturally sea resistant properties, and they stand firm against sea salt corrosion and other hazards. The glass panes of a porthole are also extremely thick, and the standard is anywhere from two to three inches.

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