Oakum

Its traditional application was in shipbuilding for caulking or packing the joints of timbers in wooden vessels and the deck planking of iron and steel ships.

[1] Oakum was also used in plumbing for sealing joints in cast iron pipe, and in log cabins for chinking.

Oakum was at one time recycled from old tarry ropes and cordage, which were painstakingly unravelled and reduced to fibre, termed "picking".

Oakum present in older cast iron bell/spigot joints may also contain asbestos, requiring special methods for removal.

[6] In Herman Melville's novella Benito Cereno, crew members of a slave ship spend their idle hours picking oakum.

Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist mentions the extraction of oakum by orphaned children in the workhouse.