Behind the Scenes
at Plimoth Plantation

Current articles in this section:

1. Firing Up the Kiln

2. Ordinarie Technology

3. Notes on a Shallop

4. Archaeology at Plimoth Plantation: Key to the Past

5. Maritime Programs at Plimoth Plantation

6. Recreating the Material Culture of Mayflower II

7. Documenting Mayflower II

8. Hands Across the Bay: A 1957 Crewmember Sails Again

9. A New Furnace for Mayflower II

10. The Story and Crew of 1957's Mayflower II

11. Why P-l-i-m-o-t-h?

A New Furnace for Mayflower II

by David Wheelock, Maritime Artisan

In January 2000 we decided to replace the old cooking area in the foc’sle of Mayflower II. The cooking area, or “furnace,” was in disrepair, and we felt it could be improved by building a more period appropriate cooking station.

We turned to the Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth, England for an appropriate example. Henry VIII’s warship, Mary Rose, sank off the English coast in 1545. Marine archaeologists excavating the wreck discovered three mostly intact large cooking furnaces. The Mary Rose Trust generously provided us with archaeological drawings and documentation of the cooking furnaces and surrounding area.

The Mary Rose was a much larger ship than was our Mayflower, and carried a much larger crew. The kettles used on Mary Rose were almost four feet across and close to two feet in depth, much larger than needed. We therefore scaled down the furnace and kettle to be built to approximately three-quarters of the original, and drew up plans accordingly. The kettle would be roughly two feet in diameter at the rim down to eighteen inches in diameter at the bottom.

The kettle was made first, so that we could adjust the furnace’s last courses of brick if needed. It was built out of several shaped panels of 1/8 inch sheet and fitted together with brass rivets. The bottom of the kettle was made from one large piece of sheet brass cut to the proper diameter and then hammered into a concave wooden mold into a bowl-like bottom, and rivited to the sides. After completion, the seams were all soldered, making the kettle water tight.

The furnace itself was probably the easiest part of this project. Using handmade brick from Maryland, and an old-style morter, we built the furnace on a fixed platform. The kettle sits flush to the surface of the last course of bricks. After finishing the kettle and furnace, we needed only to add a large lead gasket to the kettle top.

The three inch wide by ¼ inch thick lead gasket seals in the area between brick and brass. This lead gasket was cast using a sand mold. First, a wooden prototype of the gasket was made and then pressed into fine sand housed in a box. Molton lead was poured into the impression left behind, creating the gasket. Our furnace came together very nicely and is now a working exhibit aboard Mayflower II. I feel it is safe to say that Mayflower II’s furnace is probably the best reproduction of a 17th-century ship’s furnace in the country, if not the only one!

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