Learn more.

Learn more about all of this weekend’s big events.

After our failed pour of June 2010, the Historic Trades brickmasons removed the entire superstructure of the furnace down to the melting pan. Examining the mass of bronze there did not reveal anything conclusive about the failure, but reinforced the probability that the metal simply was not hot enough when we tapped the furnace. Based on that, the founders, gunsmiths, and masons made some changes in the furnace design, and beginning last autumn, the masons rebuilt the furnace accordingly. The new design also incorporates a wooden shed, built by the Historic Trades carpenters. This shed will cover the kiln to protect it from the weather on an everyday basis, provide some protection for the furnace should it rain during the firing process, and t better support the hoisting gear with which the molds and castings are handled.

Cutting up the hunk of bronze left in the furnace so that we could reuse it was more difficult than expected. After a couple unsuccessful attempts, rescue came in the form of Newport News Shipbuilding. Several of their employees picked up the mass, hauled it to Newport News, used some of their specialized equipment to cut it up, and returned it to us in pieces that we can set directly into the furnace.

While all this was going on, the founders and gunsmiths completed another set of light three-pounder molds. Their experiments with new loam mixtures led to much more satisfactory results than in the past. When they removed the core and burned out the wax, they ended up with sharp, clean interiors, and the molds seem to be more sturdy than earlier ones. They will take the molds over to the College of William and Mary on May 7, where Professor Mike Jabbur will fire them to a “redware” hardness and ensure that they are completely dry.

So, we are ready to try again. With some extremely helpful advice and hands-on assistance from Andrew Eshelman and Stephan Williams of Newport News Shipbuilding, we are planning to pour on Thursday, May 24. We will be preheating the furnace much longer than in the past, and will be using a modern pyrometer to monitor heating more accurately and better understand how the furnace is operating.

The proposed schedule — all weather dependent, of course — from now until then is:

May 7: Load molds in ceramic kiln at the College of William and Mary
May 9: Pick up molds
May 14: Test fire furnace
May 21: Load bronze in furnace and start preheating
May 22: Continue to raise furnace temperature
May 23: Continue firing. Bury mold
May 24: Build tapping channel. Bring bronze to pouring temperature. Pour.
May 25: Excavate mold and open

From May 21 until pouring, this will be a round-the-clock operation. As before, it all will be happening adjacent to the parking lot across from the Visitor Center and adjacent to Great Hopes Plantation.

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree.”

–Thomas Jefferson, 1782 Notes on the State of Virginia

Watch the vodcast now.

Listen to the podcast.

“When I contemplate the immense advances in science and discoveries in the arts which have been made within the period of my life, I look forward with confidence to equal advances by the present generation, and have no doubt they will consequently be as much wiser than we have been as we than our fathers were, and they than the burners of witches.”

–Thomas Jefferson, March 3, 1818

Listen now.

Have you ever wanted to ask the first president a question? Now’s your chance — submit questions here or e-mail them to podcasts@cwf.org.

Guests can see lambs at the Peyton Randolph House property, located at the corner of Nicholson and North England Streets, and at the pasture near Bassett Hall. Come visit!

Learn more about our Rare Breeds Program.

“The objects of this primary education [university education] determine its character and limits. These objects are To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment.”

–Thomas Jefferson, August 4, 1818

Protecting speech that is difficult or inflammatory is one of the challenges of honoring the Bill of Rights. Is a nation at war better served by united citizens, or by citizens secure in their right to speech?

Weigh in at CONNECT.