The Queen Mary was the largest ship to cross the oceans when it was launched in 1936. Through four decades and a World War she served until she was retired as a floating hotel and museum in Long Beach, California.

During the conversion into a hotel her three massive smokestacks were taken off to be scraped down and repainted. But, on the dock they crumbled. Nothing was left of the 3/4 inch steel plate from which the stacks had been formed. All that remained were more than thirty coats of paint that had been applied over the years. The steel had rusted away.

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