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Duck Boards

RiverBuilder | Posted in Construction Techniques on September 14, 2007 02:34am

I’ve got two questions:

1. Does anyone know how duck boards got their name? I can find lots of information on the internet about what duck boards (also spelled as duck-boards or even duckboards) are used for, but nothing about how they came to be called duck boards.

2. Does anyone have any suggestions for duck board designs, construction techniques and materials? I ask because I live not far back from the banks of the Hudson River where damp ground is a constant factor. I’ve just built some for my neighbor and a couple for myself, using P/T.

Thanks in advance,

RiverBuilder

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Replies

  1. rez | Sep 24, 2007 09:01pm | #1

    Greetings RiverBuilder.

    As a First time poster Welcome to Breaktime.

    Sometimes with new posters for some reason there is a time lag in getting the post on to the forum.

    This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again which will increase it's viewing.

    Perhaps it will catch someone's attention that can help you with advice.

    Cheers


    sobriety is the root cause of dementia.   

  2. Piffin | Sep 24, 2007 09:27pm | #2

    You are already ahead of me. I never heard of a duck-board. Gotta go Google some up for dinner now....

    OK, any thing that lets you walk on water like a duck. Not hard to imagine where it got a name like that.

     

     

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  3. User avater
    Jeff_Clarke | Sep 24, 2007 10:32pm | #3

    Since discovering fiberglass roofing (Kemper) I don't use 'duck boards' any more.   Don't know where the name comes from.

     

    Jeff

  4. RalphWicklund | Sep 25, 2007 01:56am | #4

    Google is your friend...

    *Duckboard  (1) A wooden frame about five feet long and 18" wide, on which are nailed crosswise, short pieces of wood in the form of a grating. (2) The Military Medal Ribbon was frequently referred to by this term.

    (1) General World War I. From 1917 (OED), but see citation below. Attested in numerous sources.

    Duckboards were used in trenches to allow easy movement over marshy and muddy ground. F&G suggest this might derive from ‘a resemblance to the sloping boards leading up to duck houses at the edge of a pond’.

    You do not walk on the bottom of the trench as you did in Gallipoli, but on a narrow wooden causeway not unlike the bridge on which ducks wander down from the henhouse to the yard – indeed it is colloquially known as the ‘duck-boards’.

    1916 C.E.W. Bean in Anzac Bulletin No. 2 July 12

    (2) General World War I. Attested in B&P, Digger Dialects, and Partridge.

    Partridge explains that this derived from the medal’s arrangement of colours.

  5. User avater
    jagwah | Sep 25, 2007 02:52am | #5

    Grew up around family members that ran resturants and hamburger joints. The floor was covered with duck boards in the back cooking area. At the end of the dayy they were pulled up and the floor cleaned and hosed. Greasy nasty little buggers! I hated cleaning them.

     

  6. Hudson Valley Carpenter | Sep 25, 2007 12:21pm | #6

    Also known as duckwalks.  Made much like wooden pallets, they're placed end to end to serve as a temporary sidewalk in muddy conditions.

     

    1. RedfordHenry | Sep 25, 2007 02:34pm | #7

      I've heard of old time yankees that used duckboards to get around the homestead during mudseason.  Also have heard of them being used to span snowy walks, before the day of Ariens snow blowers.  They were invented by a polish guy named Douglas Underwood Cziekowski (hence the acronym DUCK?).  His brother invented a grey-green adhesive tape for the US Army in WWI.  Amazing what you can find on the internet, you just gotta believe...  ;)

      1. Hudson Valley Carpenter | Sep 25, 2007 06:11pm | #8

        The first and only time I encountered duck boards was as a little kid in a new development, south of Chicago, about 1950.  It was a very rainy year, so everything was behind schedule, particularly the sidewalks.  Duck walks were the answer, as they had been in many military training camps during WWII.

      2. DanH | Jan 11, 2018 08:22am | #11

        I'm gonna call BULL[JOBSITE

        I'm gonna call BULLSHIT on at least one of your claims (making the others highly doubtful).  "Duck tape" is so-called because it was made from "duck" cloth.  Originally used to seal ammo cans.  ("Duct tape" is an unfortunate back-formation, since the stuff is unsuited for ducts.)

  7. Mılko | Jan 11, 2018 01:50am | #9

    DUCK Boards

    The name origıinates from the trenches of the first world war. They became so muddy that the soldiers created the boards so they dıdn't sink into it and so they felt like ducks with web feet.

    Take a look on Google you'll find a number of designs but the design has to fit the individual situation.

  8. Mılko | Jan 11, 2018 01:50am | #10

    DUCK Boards

    The name origıinates from the trenches of the first world war. They became so muddy that the soldiers created the boards so they dıdn't sink into it and so they felt like ducks with web feet.

    Take a look on Google you'll find a number of designs but the design has to fit the individual situation.

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