• Finials for St. Eusebius's Church

    Eusebius, Restoration
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    We're currently carving parts of pinnacles by the cartload. They are all destined for St. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem (the Netherlands). Below are some pictures of work I've made this far. In the picture above you can see a number of blocks ready for transport: successively, an old tuffstone block, a block of red sandstone from my hand, one by Stide and one by Jelle, and finally one by Jelle in Massangis-limestone. It's ornamental work for two complete big finials, and many individual parts for some other pinnacles.

    old pinnacle of tuff stone fromSt. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem
    the old pinnacle of tuffstone

    Ornaments

    Actually we don't carve all of the stonemasonry parts ourselves. That was done by the stonemasons from Slotboom Stonemasons in Winterswijk, the Netherlands. We only do the ornamental parts. Many of the old ornaments have crumbled and were carved a bit shallow and plump at the time. A great opportunity to make something nice out of it again. I also found a couple of weird forms of crockets (Gothic leaf motifs) on a number of blocks. Since this work was to be inserted into existing work as a repair, I just copied this strange design as it was, so that it does not contrast later on with the other elements of that pinnacle.

    Colourful ensemble

    The two finials that are to be replaced completely are composed of five different types of stone: white Massangis-limestone, brown Udelfanger sandstone, Red Eifel Sandstone, red Bentheimer sandstone and yellow-brown Weiberner tuff stone. This was similarly used in the 1920s in a previous restoration and for their durablity also used for these pinnacles. It will provide a vivid image of contrasting stone types.

    old finial block tufa

    Massangis

    This is the first time I'm working in Massangis limestone. It's quite a tricky stone: for a limestone, its quite touch and rather difficult to keep the edges crisp. In the restoration of the Utrecht Dom Tower we will probably be going to carve a lot of ornaments in Massangis, so it looks like we're already practicing for that!

  • Finials and side crockets, for Eusebius and Dom Church

    Dom Church, Utrecht, Eusebius, Latest projects, Restoration
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    finials in Muschelkalk for St. Eusebius's Church

    Finials for St. Eusebius's Church

    We are working on the completion of three projects: the first half of St. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem (the Netherlands) is almost finished, the last pieces of St. John's Cathedral are completed, and the last crockets for the South Chapel of the Utrecht cathedral are packed and ready for shipping as well. The finials in the above picture are destined for the south side of St. Eusebius's Church. These are fairly simple crockets in French Massangis-limestone, with a post-war era design, but they will contour well with their clean lines. There are only a few of those, and it's indent work: damaged finials and crockets are cut out from the surrounding stone and a new one is inserted at that spot. Tuesday 19 February, I was on the scaffolding at the church to carve another few of these crockets on site. Always fun, about visit to the scaffolds.

    My own pieces were not yet inserted into the church walls, at the corbel of "The Night’ that I carved recently, but it was still completely enclosed between the scaffolding planks. Stides heads in Muschelkalk, however, were clearly visible, a joy for the eye.

    Jelle and I started the morning there with measuring the next batch of 7 flying buttress figurines as well. Unfortunately many of them were seriously damaged. I hope they do not need too much work before they can serve as a model for their copies!

    Tuffstone side crockets for the Utrecht cathedral

    old side crockets ready for transport- a beaten-up collection

    The latest side crockets for the Utrecht Cathedral are now ready for transport as well here. It was a fun project: 29 side crockets in tuffstone for the South Chapel, on the side of the inner courtyard, the Pandhof. We divided this work between the three of us, Stide and I carved about 6 each, and Serge made the rest.

    With my chainsaw I separated the old side crockets from their heavy background parts, so they can be put into storage. But I must say that these old blocks will quickly erode once they're on pallets at ground level. Apparently they can certainly get soaked atop the church, but they'll also dry up again very fast. Here on the ground they'll stay wet for much longer and the old pieces also suffer a lot more from frost.

    Scaffolding visit on Valentine's Day


    We're hoping to carve a lot more for this church, sometime in the future. So we've recently already been back again to see the first blocks in place, and on Valentine's Day we were able to look down on a boisterous Utrecht in bright sunshine. The terraces were full due to the unprecedented warm February sunshine, and with an elated feeling we were looking out over Utrecht and the Utrecht Dom Tower across the street. So, bring on that church!

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