• Thomas Aquinas, part 2: sawing

    Restoration, Saint John's Cathedral
    Thomas Aquinas, part 2: sawing. Two large sandstone blocks
    1. Two large sandstone blocks of Udelfanger sandstone: 1 for the statue of Thomas Aquinas, 1 for Serge's angel

    Two large blocks

    The work on the on copy of the statue of Thomas Aquinas has finally started. I had received two large blocks of Udelfanger sandstone some time earlier: one destined to make two angels out of it and one block from which I had to carve the two parts of the statue of St. Thomas from St John's Cathedral in Den Bosch, The Netherlands and fit them together. So the first step was to divide both blocks into two with the diamond chainsaw.

    Presawing Thomas

    After that I put one block on my copying saw or contour sawing machine and started presawing Thomas' lower half. The dividing line of the two parts was meant to be near the line of his hood, so that

    it's almost invisible. Reminder: in an earlier post I wrote that the old statue was made from a single piece of stone, in which the layers run vertically. Because it's more desirable that the layers run through the statue horizontally (in that case, there's less chance that an entire big slice comes falling down at once, after weathering) it will be different in this copy. But the quarry has no banks in which the stone is higher than 120 cms wide. Therefore, the head was to be made from a separate piece.

    Thomas. Aquinas, part 2: sawing. I halved the block with the diamond chainsaw
    2. The block is cut in half with the chainsaw
    Thomas Aquinas, part 2: sawing. Presawing the lower body
    3. Sawing the lower body

    Because of the large color differences between separate blocks of Udelfanger sandstone I was sent a very large block from which I had to cut the two parts. From this I made the body and the head of Thomas.

    Thomas Aquinas, part 2: sawing. Upper body presawed.
    4. The upper body was cut from the second half
    Thomas Aquinas, part 2: sawing. Rough carving the head and body
    5. The head and the body are roughly carved

    Fitting together of the two parts

    Then, the two pre-sawn parts of the head and body had to be made to fit to each other snugly. That wasn't so easy, because the dividing line doesn't run straight. It follows the wavy line of the hood and needs to be higher at the right hand, because otherwise the joint seam would run through the knuckles. These inclined faces need to fit together well. For this, it should first be clear what will be located where, and for that I needed to rough carve the two parts for quite a ways. I carved the upper body and the lower body so that I could see where it all would be going, and I could see where the dividing line was to run. Then I could find the joint surfaces.

    Thomas Aquinas, part 2: sawing. Making both planes fit
    6. The joint surfaces are being made to fit
    Thomas. Aquinas, part 2: sawing. The head and body are bonded.
    7. the two parts are bonded together

    Joint surface

    Because I made this joint line visible on both pieces, I could demarcate the joint surface and carve away the excess stone. By keeping on fitting the pieces together and scribing the excess stone, I could ultimately achieve a tight seam. When the fit was tight enough, I scribed off where I wanted to put the stainless steel pins and drilled four holes. Two holes in each piece, so I could adhere both parts with strong epoxy glue and two thick threaded rods. Also, the joint plane itself was bonded with a suitable breathable mortar. You should actually never make a horizontally extending closed off gluing surface on a statue sitting outside. The stone above such a dense glue layer can't lose its moisture and will start to rot right above the glue seam.

    Serge's angel

    Copying an angel for St. John's Cathedral
    The other block was halved as well. From the one half this angel was presawn for Serge

    My colleague Serge had an commission in Udelfanger sandstone as well for St. John's Cathedral in Den Bosch. He was asked to copy this angel. He had previously made one and asked me if I wanted to saw this one as well. Jelle did a perfect job for him.

    Read more about the continuation of this project in the next post.

  • Thomas Aquinas (sandstone) for St. John's Cathedral

    Restoration, Saint John's Cathedral
    statue of Thomas Aquinas
    Thomas Aquinas: Here the statue is still in its niche of St John's Cathedral

    St. John's cathedral

    The major overhaul of St. John's Cathedral is steadily continuing. Each year or maybe every two years, I'm not quite sure, one bay of the church is restored: 1 buttress and 1 window facade. This year I already did some work on two finial bases, a slanted profile and some crockets, but this time no canopy.

    Weathering on the statue of Thomas Aquinas
    In particular, the folds at the bottom of his habit were considerably weathered

    Thomas Aquinas

    I received a request to bid for the carving of a copy of a statue from this church. To my pleasure I got the commission. But at the time it was not yet clear to me which saint was depicted. It is a statue in Udelfanger sandstone.

    Stylistically I thought from the 1920, because it is so highly stylized, but it is about 40 years older: around 1880. It's a monk in a Dominican habit (as seen by his hood) with a book, a quill and a dove. The book and dove made clear that he is a "father of the church’ as it's called.

    The dove stands for Divine inspiration

    a father of the church (nowadays Teacher of the Church , because there are female teachers of the church as well, such as Teresa of Ávila, Catherine of Siena, Theresia of Lisieux and Hildegard of Bingen) is someone who has left important writings on faith and doctrinal matters and has led an exemplary life of holiness.

    I thought his book to show something like 'Lausal da van Sion Tower', but a search yielded nothing. I wish I had read vertically!

    Long live Whatsapp

    Lau da Sion Sal va torem

    After a few questions via Whatsapp to the right person it became clear that this sculpture has been on the outside of the cathedral in front of a stained-glass window, and that he probably was depicted on the inside as well. And yes, he was, he turned out to be Thomas Aquinas. And so the text becomes immediately apparent: an opening sentence from a famous cantata written by him. 'Lau da Sion Sal va torem'. Praise, Sion, the Savior.

    strange, For Aquinas was, according to tradition so enormously fat that he did not fit in a regular choir bench. They had to saw away one of the separation pieces, so he could sit at twice the normal width. Here he is pictured almost ascetic lean.

    Vertical layering

    Anyway, I was not hired for a hagiography or for art historical research, but to carve a copy. The first step is to reconstruct it, and then I need to carve a copy from that into a new block of sandstone. And just there's the catch. The old statue was carved in Udelfanger sandstone. But this stone is not available in this height. How is it that they were able to make a statue in one piece anyway? Simple. The stone they can retrieve from a bank of about one meter thick. So a statue of 152 cm is simply not possible. Unless you take a horizontal block of stone.

    But this choice has its drawbacks. The sedimentary deposits of this block will then be in line with the statue. Vertical. You'd prefer that the layers run horizontally through the sculpture, because if something breaks, the fracture will run horizontally as well, So the chance that everything stays in place anyhow is quite large. But in a statue with vertical layers, after some weathering an entire slice at once could come loose and fall down.

    The layer deposition in the quarry is called layering. Horizontal layering is desirable, upright layering is not. For this staue, they wanted a block with horizontal layering. That just is not possible, because the bank thickness in the quarry is not more than at most 110 cms wide.

    Patching it up

    The pictures show clearly that this sculpture is missing entire parts at the bottom, which fell off after weathering. I had to remodel those first and make a reconstruction of how it must have been originally. Now I do prefer plaster for this, so I can presaw the statue more easily on my copying saw. But Thomas Aquinas must be preserved intact because he will be stored later in the museum The Bouwloods, at St. John's Cathedral. That's why I modeled the missing parts in plastiline clay, which never dries out. That can later be easily removed again.

    In two parts

    Statue of Thomas Aquinas (sandstone) reconstruction in plastiline clay
    Missing parts are filled in with plastiline clay. The chalk mark approximately indicates the seam.

    This week, the committee came to see me to review the results and discuss how we can make this statue in horizontal layering. Eventually it was decided to create a thin seam between the two new blocks. On the dividing line of the monk's hood will be a cutting surface. But this seam runs quite irregular. When I cut a straight line here it will firstly be very visible and secondly the seam runs through the knuckles of the right hand.

    After some deliberation we decided: I'll make a separate top part and a separate bottom part. Exactly on the axis of the cap, I'll carve a parting plane toboth parts. Next, I'll put the two pieces together and insert two thick stainless steel pins. That will be an interesting puzzle!

    Read more about this image in the next post.

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