Oakum
Oakum is a preparation of tarred fibre used to seal gaps. Its main traditional applications were in shipbuilding, for caulking or packing the joints of timbers in wooden vessels and the deck planking of iron and steel ships; in plumbing, for sealing joints in cast iron pipe; and in log cabins for chinking. In ship caulking, it was forced between the seams using a hammer and a caulking iron, then sealed into place with hot pitch.
Tiger tail wire
Tiger tail wire (also simply called tiger tail or tiger-tail) is a kind of thin wire encased in nylon often used in beaded jewellery, and that is particularly suited to stringing heavy beads and sharp beads, which tend to fray other kinds of thread. For this reason, tiger tail is the thread of choice for gemstones. Some tiger tail has multiple intertwined wire threads under the nylon coating. The wire threads are made of stainless steel. Tiger tail cannot be fashioned into a knot in order to end a sequence of beads as other kinds of thread can, therefore crimp beads are often used for this purpose instead. Crimp beads are also used as spacers between other beads strung on tiger tail. Among the types of wire used for bead stringing, tiger tail is the most common. Tiger tail is easier to use than many other kinds of thread, and it does not require the use of a sewing needle. Tiger tail has high ultimate tensile strength and is therefore extremely difficult to tear, but if it is creased or twisted, tiger tail has a tendency to kink and then become brittle in the kinked area.