• video: copying a weathered head in new stone

    Latest projects, Restoration, video

     

    Four heads

    Copying one of the four weathered sandstone grotesque heads from a building in Amsterdam. The original is kept, the copies will be placed into the facade. Since the original carvings were made with a fairly rough finish, the copy received the same finish as well.

    I started with the stonemasonry work on the profiles and the and lay the chisel mark finish of the flat parts that end up within sight. The interior of the profile was finished with a pointed chisel. The parts of the stone that will be set inside the wall, are roughened up with a single cut stroke, at the edge where the joint will be, and with deeper lines on the rest of the surface. This is to insure better adhesion of the mortar. Read here the first post about this project.

    Work flow

    I started by tracing the profile, which I transferred onto the stone by using a template. Everything outside the lines of the profile I then cut and carved away. Then I measured the circumferences of the face and carved the parts of the hair a bit deeper. Then as the mass of the face remained, I started shaping the face itself. By placing the two stones tightly against each other, many measurements can be taken with a single setting of the compass. If the stone is rotated 90 degrees, many more measurements can be taken the same way.

    Much of the copy is carved by eye. This method is slightly less accurate than carving with a pointing machine, but it is much faster and therefore cheaper for the customer. This method relies very much on the experience of the sculptor.

    After this came detailing and finishing. This sandstone (Udelfanger) can be smoothed up to a very fine finish, but because the original was previously carved quite quickly, the copy was given the same finish with traces of the tooth iron over almost the entire surface.

    Read here a message on the techniques used and here and here two more messages with tips for sculptors.

  • Four grotesques in Amsterdam-2

    Latest projects, Restoration
    1 Reaction
    Three times a Grotesque in Udelfanger sandstone, copy and weathered originals

    The four ferocious heads I reported on last week are finished. Below are some pictures.

    Grotesque

    These facade ornaments were carved quite freehanded at the time, which is why I have reproduced the same chisel strokes in the copies. The heads will function as the top stones in a few window arches, underneath a stone frieze. An exception is the lion's head, which has only an ornamental function. Soon a video report on the carving of one of the heads will follow.

    A trail of crumbs

    When I saw the first pictures of the originals, I was afraid I would recieve a handful of crumbs in a box. I know this stone: Udelfanger is well resistant against all weathering, but after so many hundreds of years of wind and weather, it finally starts to give in. Its surface starts flaking off, the stone itself starts to wash out in places where a lot of water passes, and then everything increasingly crumbles down. Once you need to take the piece down from the facade, it's not surprising that more pieces will break off, even by just taking hold of it.

    Fortunately, the stonemasons who disassembled it still managed to save most of it. Which meant I was able to reconstruct it for the most part. Some things will, without any additional reference material, always remain unclear how it was at the time. It is therefore a sensible decision to preserve the originals and return a copy to its place, while the data is still readable.

    • copy grotesque in Udelfanger sandstone, Amsterdam

No more messages to show.

No more messages to show.