ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I examine the use of ship wood and iron in royal shipbuilding in the seventeenth century. I use the ship Upplands Leijonet and its life-cycle as an example to understand the transformation of wood, particularly oak and iron, into different shipbuilding parts, and then into a warship. At the end of its life-cycle, the ship was broken up and reused as filling and as parts in new ships. Sailing warships are normally seen as parts of a Navy and of a national war machine. Seen as material in the construction, deconstruction, and recirculation of a royal warship changes the perspective: away from the ship towards materiality and production, the workforce, and their skills.
