• Jesus back into place again

    Latest projects, Restoration
    Installing Jesus statue

    With a new set of hands and on a new pedestal of the same French limestone the Sacred Heart statue is looking wonderful again.

    The statue was installed last Friday in a nice place, inside the school where it formerly stood in the basement: College Hageveld in Heemstede. The statue had to be placed in a fairly empty room, where once the altar of the school chapel used to be, when it was still a minor seminary.

    placement staue of Jesus Hageveld

    Getting it there was a tricky job, because we had to overcome a stairway of about 1 metres 60 high. To make it even harder there was also a bridge spanning the stairs, leaving very little height for lifting the statue. With a batch of pallets, we filled up the stairs, and with an engine hoist we could lift the statue on the pallets.

    The staue of Jesus again in a good spot on a new pedestal.

    And even upstairs we could make good use of this hoist, to lift the statue onto its new base. The hands were still not in place, that only came after the statue was anchored to the wall and to the pedestal with a solid stainless steel wire end in the back and in the base plate .

    As I already explained in wrote before, I had first carved two hands out of the same limestone, but by accident both middle fingers broke off. Actually a good thing, for this way I found out that this wasn't strong enough. Now the hands are made with special restoration mortar around a solid stainless steel frame. This way, the statue should last for another century.

  • Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose

    Restoration
    restoring hands of statue from Hageveld
    the original, broken, left hand

    Made to fit exactly

    Not always everything goes as planned. I was energetically went to work with Sacred Heart statue that I had picked up in Heemstede. Making the new hands went smoothly and exactly as expected. I had some new pieces of the same limestone, so that all could be restored to the best standards. Well, that's what I thought. I had made these new limestone hands to fit exactly into the holes in the sleeves. However, when the hands were finished I accidentally hit two fingers, causing, as if it was meant to be, the two middle fingers to break. Nasty the first message about this project.

    High Five

    I already had my doubts about the strength of the new hands. The statue will be placed near the auditorium inside the school, and you only need one student wanting to do a high-five with Jesus and the hands are already broken again. So it was at once clear that this solution was not strong enough. So I chose to adhere a little less to the restoration requirements. I'd rather have hands that are strong enough and not exactly out of the same material, than making them according to the rules of the art and finding them already broken within a week.

    Stainless steel frame

    That's why I first welded a frame for the new hands from stainless steel threaded rods, and built it up completely anew with mortar. This restoration mortar was specifically made for this type of stone, but it is stronger, especially in combination with the solid stainless steel frame inside.

    Only once the statue is securely in its new place, I will firmly fix the new hands and grout them with the same mortar. I also made a new limestone base for the same statue. After installing it, I will publish the last post about this restoration.

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