 Lenny Leahy, the Executive Director of Mechanics Hall, and I am thrilled to welcome you to the 2019 Sparrow Lecture. I want to begin with enormous gratitude for those who have made this evening possible, and that starts with Robert Baird. Robert brought the idea of this lecture to us, and he has been beyond generous with his time and his resources to make the program in our Capital Craft Photo Exhibit, which if you haven't seen, please visit in the classroom on your way out. Come together. The artistry and craftsmen that went into the design and the restoration of the US Capitol Dome are at the heart of Mechanics Hall. Our founders, the main charitable mechanics association, were mechanical artists, carpenters, painters, woodworkers, engineers, blacksmiths, and architects. Tonight, we celebrate that history in this beautiful historic ballroom. So thank you, Robert. I want to thank our sponsors for this evening, Turner Construction, the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters, Local 7116, and the New England Mechanical Contractors Association, Oak Point Associates, and Chimbro. Thank you also to our many mechanic and maker patrons that I see in the audience tonight, and of course, our staff and our volunteers, and our Sparrow Lecture Committee. Chair Pam Plumb, our board president, Paul Stevens, Dale Doucette, Carolyn, Greg, Chandra, and Kathleen. Could I get a show of hands of people that this is your very first visit to Mechanics Hall? Oh my goodness. Wow, well, welcome especially to all of you, and I hope that tonight's event is just the beginning of our relationship with you. Mechanics Hall has been at the center of Portland's Art District for 160 years. It has served a community of people who are curious about history, creativity, ingenuity, and knowledge. This building and this ballroom have been home to great debates, conversations, performances, and lectures, and we are excited to continue that tradition with the Sparrow Lecture this evening. I know that before I began working on this program, I didn't necessarily think of construction workers and tradespeople as artists, but as you will see tonight, they very much are. And when you think about what the capital represents, the ideals that guide us as a country, that dome is a masterpiece. It is an architectural and artistic expression of our democracy. And I cannot think of anyone who shares that sentiment more than our very special guest this evening, Senator Angus King. If you follow the senator on Instagram, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. He has captured the capital dome in photographs from every imaginable angle in every light and season, and through his eyes, you truly experience the beauty and majesty of this architectural gem. Senator Angus King was sworn in as Maine's first independent United States Senator in January of 2013, filling the same seat that once held by storied Maine leaders Edmund Muskie, George Mitchell, and Olympia Snow. He served on four oversight committees, rules, intelligence, armed services, and energy and natural resources. And of course, Senator King also served as the 72nd governor of our great state of Maine. During his two terms in the Blaine House, he achieved significant reforms in education, mental health service, land conservation, environmental protection, and the delivery of state services. He was re-elected in 1998 by one of the largest margins in Maine's history. Senator, while our day jobs differed dramatically, we both share a sense of awe for the history and beauty of the buildings in which we work. We are so grateful to have you here this evening to share your knowledge and appreciation of this historic landmark, and we are delighted to provide you with a small respite to talk about the building you so admire rather than what might be going on inside of it. Will you please join me in welcoming Senator Angus King? Before I begin, I'd like to give you a short presentation on what we're accomplishing these days in the U.S. Senate. I'm hesitant about this presentation for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Earl Shuddleworth is here. Earl Shuddleworth, the state historian, started, firstly, Governor Joshua Chamberlain, worked with Earl for many years, and I think Earl will remember this meeting. When they decided to renovate the statehouse in Augusta, of course, the governor's office is in the statehouse. Earl came in, do you remember? And there was a group of builders, and they came in and sat down with me and said, you know, we're going to renovate your office, and I said, no. And the reason I did was I didn't want a headline that said, you know, a million dollars spent on new drapes for the governor's office or something. And then I compromised and said, okay, you can put in new carpet. And then I said, well, maybe, and actually it was you and Kay finally leaned on me, and they renovated the governor's office, and lo and behold, there was a drop ceiling that had been there since nobody knew how long. They pulled it down and there was this beautiful cornice all the way around that had been covered up for probably 50 or 75 years, and it turned into an absolutely beautiful space. So Earl, thank you for persuading me to do that. I cannot stop taking pictures of the United States Capitol. It is just so inspiring, and one of my favorite things to do is either to escort visitors into the Rotunda or to be standing there when people who haven't been there walk in. And universally, there's this... I mean, the word awe is overused, but that's what comes across people's faces. It is truly, I believe, one of the great interior spaces in the world. I took this one day sitting on this bench, and the world down there is so chaotic and hectic that every now and then, if you can just catch a quiet moment, I sat on the bench and, isn't that an amazing place to go to work? That's my office. Now, I'm going to get this out of the way first, and you've seen this on a number of my Instagrams, and you don't have to follow me on Instagram, Angus King, Maine, but it would be nice. It took me six months to persuade my staff to let me do it by myself. So if you want an unfiltered view of what I'm thinking and doing, this is the place to go. So it was just... What I have said several times on these pictures is it's too bad our work doesn't match the magnificence of the surroundings. It is one of the most magnificent places, and the people who built and created this incredible space had a great vision of America. And one of the great stories about the Capitol is that it was built in the early part of the 1800s, and they came to sort of a pause in the 1850s and started the dome in 1855, I think, and then it was stopped. And Congress wanted to stop the work for the Civil War. They were otherwise occupied, and Lincoln wouldn't let them. Lincoln said, no, we're going to finish this because it's a symbol of the Union and of the grandeur of this great country. So the dome was finished after the Civil War, I think about 1866 or 67, but it is one of the great interior spaces. Now, one of the things that people always look at when they come in and Robert's going to do this in more detail, but at the top is a painting, and most people look up and think it's a painting of God. There's this guy on a throne and sort of angels around, but it's not, it's George Washington. And the angels are holding, the women are holding a banner that says, E Pluribus Unum, out of many one, from many one, which by the way has 13 letters, 13 colonies, 13 letters, E Pluribus Unum. Now, one of the really interesting things, and I learned this, Mary and I did our house at Brunswick about 20 years ago, and we wanted a room with a cathedral ceiling and there was a room with a peaked roof and our architect, a guy named Tony Jackson, some of you may know him, a wonderful architect. By the way, my favorite course in college was architecture. I wanted to be an architect, but I was awful in math and I was afraid the buildings would fall down. So I failed in that aspiration. But when Tony did our room, he pointed out that the interior ceiling is different than the actual roof. It's a shallower pitch. And then he whipped out a picture of St. Paul's Cathedral to point out that the dome is here and it's a different dimension, do you see, than the ceiling? And indeed, here's St. Paul's Cathedral, same idea, Sir Christopher Wren. The top of the rotunda inside is a different curvature than the actual dome itself, which I thought was very interesting and I learned that from my living room in Washington. Now here's Robert in the middle of his work. I took that one night and I happened to be there during the restoration of the dome and the whole, I thought that was, the whole thing was covered with scaffolding and lit up from the inside. It was an extraordinary view for months and months that was really very striking. And I did once go, the senators and their chiefs of staff and I suppose members of Congress are allowed to go up all the way to the top of the dome. I made the mistake of doing that once. The view down into the rotunda is one of the most terrifying experiences. I backed away and then went outside and looked out across the mall, which was fine. But there's something about looking down into that and I can't imagine you're having to live with that every day. But it is an extraordinary place. Now one other story I want to tell, this is the statue of freedom that's on the top of the dome and she looks east. The front of the capital is the east side that faces east and that's where presidential inaugurations were for, I don't know, 150 years. There's a famous photograph of Lincoln's second inaugural on the steps on the east front of the capital and on the balustrade behind him in the picture is John Wilkes Booth. And it was about a month before Lincoln's assassination so John Wilkes Booth was plotting even at that time. He's in that famous photograph. But anyway, the east side was designed and the west side is now which faces down toward the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument is where inaugurations are now. There's a lot more room for people but up until I think Reagan was the first president who was inaugurated on the west side. Anyway, this statue is really interesting and it has an interesting bit of history. You can see that she's wearing a helmet with a plume on top. The original design for the statue was that she was going to have a cap, a soft cap that would sort of fall over to one side and the cap was the symbol of the French Revolution. At the time of the French Revolution it was called a freedom cap. Well, it seems that the person in charge of the final construction of the dome was a fellow who had been a senator from Mississippi and was then Buchanan secretary of defense and his name was Jefferson Davis who by the way, for reasons that still I think are a mystery an honorary degree from Bowdoin College in 1859. I've never been able to ascertain why that was the case. So, Davis said, no, we're not going to have the cap because that might be interpreted as an anti-slavery statement. Cap of freedom. So, that's why today you look at Madam Freedom on top of the dome of the capitol and she has a helmet. This picture I just took about three nights ago. I was walking home and you can see down here there's restoration going on on the house side. This is the Senate side here. The house side is here and the moon was coming up and it was just too much. People said, oh, you're a nice photographer. No, you can take a million pictures with digital until one of them looks good. That's that. But it is an inspiring place to work and it's just, I hope that you will come and visit. I'll end with this. Any Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock my office is open for anybody from Maine that's in town for coffee and really good blueberry cake and we also have young interns and some of you have told me tonight you've had tours of the capitol which is really wonderful. So come and visit and now I want to introduce Robert Baird. Robert is a craftsman who started, I love his story, he started working for his father in Williamsburg on restoration at the bottom of a well looking for artifacts. So this guy went from the bottom of a well to the top of the capitol dome. And he was in charge, his company won the bid to restore the capitol dome. It's cast iron and it hadn't been, I don't know how long it had been since it had been maintained, but it really needed work and it was a long and arduous and wonderfully executed project and the good news is he lives in Brooklyn, Maine. That's Brooklyn with an I. That's the real Brooklyn. And we're really honored to have the work that he did in Washington for all of the citizens of America and we're so happy to have him with us here tonight. Robert Baird. Thank you Senator King. That was very generous and it's really a privilege and an honor to be here with you tonight. I want you to know that I love the state of Maine. I was struck by Maine when I first came here in the early 80s. I spent a week at Wooden Boat in Brooklyn and John Wilson was kind enough to let me stay at the boat house down on the water with my wife and have our pick of any Wooden Boat that we could climb into. And I bit, hook, line, and sinker and I've dreamt about Maine my entire life. I'm originally from Utah was raised in Utah and my father was one of the early conservation architects in America. He was actually mentored by Dr. Ed Kindrew who was the architect for Williamsburg. My father was chosen to be the architect for the restoration of an early Mormon community on the Mississippi River called Nauvoo. And at the age of 10 years old my father moved our family from Utah to Illinois and we lived on the banks of the Mississippi River. And it was there that I got my early education and developed a love for preservation. Like Senator King said I did find myself in the bottom of a well and somebody mentioned to me that I ended my career on the top of the dome and I can't think of a better way to end a career in preservation. So today I get to talk about the US Capitol which is one of my favorite subjects. Like Senator King there's no other place more amazing than to walk into the Capitol. I for three years had the opportunity to watch the sunrise and the sunset from the top of the dome. And I wasn't there every single day but mostly six days a week and I grew to love the views around Washington DC. I want to start my presentation by talking a little bit about cast iron because most people don't know that the dome was actually manufactured in cast iron and I want to give a little bit of context about cast iron and its properties. Cast iron is a ferris metal and it weighs 500 pounds a cubic foot. Its melding point is 2060 to 2200 degrees. It has a carbon content of 1.4 to 4% and it shrinks an eighth of an inch per foot from its molten state to its solid state. The history of cast iron is quite interesting. Of course the iron age started at 2500 years BC but cast iron was actually used as early as 500 AD in architectural structures and they were found in China. Actually monasteries were built up in the mountains and were tied to the mountain by cast iron columns. In 1770 the iron bridge over the Seven River was the first major engineered cast iron structure. In Ditherington in the Flax Mill it had a structure made of cast iron. In New York City there was a military arsenal and armory or an arsenal that was made from cast iron and water vellette. By 1820 cast iron was being used by the British Empire all over the world and the commissioners house in Bermuda was actually had a cast iron structure. It's interesting that my dad was able to do that restoration. As a preservationist in the early 70s my father was one of the first cast iron structures in America. There was a complete restoration where the building was disassembled and re-erected. My brothers and I helped do that restoration in my parent's garage. There was nobody doing that kind of work around. We lived up in the Rocky Mountains and there was a thriving foundry industry still in our community so we were able to use local foundries and pattern makers to accomplish that work. By the 1850s cast iron was being widely used around the world and in Great Britain which was the largest manufacturer or user of cast iron was using iron in outposts all over the world. In Glasgow, Scotland the McFarland foundry became world renowned was producing a lot of that iron. This is an illustration from their 1869 catalogue of their showroom and they made everything from fountains to railing systems to canopies and to glass and iron structures. In the early 1850s about the same time that Thomas U. Walter was chosen to work on the U.S. Capitol one of the great engineering accomplishments was at the World's Fair and it was the Crystal Palace. It was designed by a gardener who had this idea they were getting ready to do this world exposition and they couldn't figure out how they were going to build a building big enough and this gardener came up with an idea using glass and cast iron to build the Crystal Palace. It was 1,850 feet long 400 feet wide 108 feet high and one of the most amazing structures and it was all glass and cast iron. So in 1850 a brilliant engineer from New York City was at this exposition. His name was James Bogartis and he saw what was happening with cast iron and he came up with this idea to build buildings out of cast iron, cast iron store fronts and in 1859 he filed a patent with the U.S. patent office and became really the founder of cast iron architecture in America. By 1860 cast iron factories were springing up all over the United States to build cast iron facades and a lot of that was attributed to James Bogartis and his patent. Every major industrial city in America had cast iron structures. So cast iron was starting to become in the forefront of architects and designers. Now was it just created out of thin air? There were precedents for this dome that Thomas U. Walter had seen and was familiar with. One was the St. Louis County Courthouse it was completed but the dome was actually cast iron. Another one of the structures that Walter was really intrigued with was St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg which had a cast iron dome. So I want to take time now and talk a little bit about the history of the capital. The capital has had a series of architects that have been involved in the design and managed the work at the U.S. Capital. The very first architect of the capital was William Thornton. William Thornton was kind of a renaissance man. He was born in the British Virgin Islands and studied in Scotland at the University of Aberdeen and became a doctor. But he loved art and he loved architecture. And he did a grand tour of Europe saw the architecture in Paris and Great Britain and Rome and self trained to become an architect. And William Thornton heard about this competition to design this new state building in the capital of Washington, DC and he created a design and it was selected to be built. And he became that first architect of the capital. Following William Thornton Benjamin Henry La Trobe who was a neoclassicist was born and trained in Great Britain was really a classically trained architect. And he took Thornton's design and added the central section to the US capital and then added a dome to that structure. Benjamin Henry La Trobe always complained about Thornton because he thought he was just cleaning up this amateurs architecture work. Following La Trobe Charles Bullfinch was the third architect of the capital and he was the very first American trained classical architect to be involved with the US capital and he had gained a reputation for his work in Boston and he was at the US capital and added to that, added the front porticoes, built a bigger dome and was involved in the US capital until 1829. So after after Bullfinch there was a period of time when there wasn't really an architect of the capital. His position had kind of been terminated and the capital was growing and the building was full and by 1850 it was determined that the capital needed to be enlarged. And again there was another competition to select an architect and a design an enlarged design for the US capital and that competition was entered by several architects and during that competition no architect was selected but there was an architect that stood out and these two men really became the brains behind the master plan and the design of the US capital and they were two real unique individuals Thomas Hsu Walter is there on the left and Walter Miggs is on the right Thomas Hsu Walter was classically trained as an architect he was from Philadelphia he worked with William Strickland he helped found the AIA and he was the architect of the capital from 1851 to 1865 What Walter did that was so unique is he hung the drawings that he had created of his master plan for the US capital with the house and senate wings and this enlarged dome and then he invited senators and congressmen to come into his office to look at those drawings and everyone that saw them was so impressed that the president actually commissioned him to be the architect of the capital and then that building was rapidly put into construction and contracts were awarded I think $100,000 was appropriated to build the building a lot of the senators and congressmen didn't really know how much it would cost in the end to build but that money was appropriated and construction started in 1851 of this new Thomas Eustach-Walter design now the thing that was really interesting is Walter was this brilliant designer but the president appointed Miggs from the Corps of Engineers to construct the capital and this often occurs in construction projects when you have a designer and a builder they butt heads and it turned out that Walter had designed this beautiful building and Miggs was impeccably honest excuse me and he wanted to make sure that this project ended up in budget and he was always trying to cut corners and so Walter quit providing him drawings and then he quit paying Walter and by 1859 there was a deadlock the building was in construction the house and senate wings were being built but there was this deadlock finally Walter Miggs resigned and Walter took over the construction of the capital and things started to proceed the thing that's amazing about the US capital is this cast iron dome and the structure as Senator King mentioned it's an inner dome and an outer dome and they're tied together by this amazing cast iron structure so it becomes an amazing engineering feat to design and build this dome much of the design work for the actual dome itself was done by Schoenborn who was a German engineer that was on the staff of Walter he created all of the drawings that had Walter's name on them and I've seen a lot of these drawings they're magnificent wash renderings these drawings that I show here are five feet wide and nine feet tall and they're hand rendered with pen and ink and washed with color and they're phenomenal so Miggs graduated from West Point he was the quarter master general of the US Army he supervised construction of the US capital from 1855 to 1859 and he was also the architect for Arlington Cemetery so when he left the capital he continued his career as an engineer and became one of the cornerstone people that helped during the Civil War and was a right hand man to grant so a couple facts about the dome the dome is 287 feet tall it was cast by a foundry in New York City James Fowler Kirkland there's almost 9 million pounds of cast iron involved in the dome and it was purchased for 7 cents a pound and that was installed and a lot of it was erected by hired slaves the cost for the dome for the construction of the expansion from 1850 to 1866 was a million thousand dollars and the Statue of Freedom that sits on top that Senator King spoke so nicely about was designed by Thomas Crawford interesting to note Thomas Crawford was a brilliant American sculptor who was in Rome he was commissioned by Walter to develop this model for this statue and he got it completed and then he died of a heart attack and he was doing the model in Rome it took from 1858 to 1863 to get the model to the United States and then cast in a foundry outside of Washington DC and erected up on the dome during the course of that design when Walter finally got the model the model was 3 feet taller than was originally planned so Walter quickly during that 1859 down period quickly redesigned the dome to change the proportions so that that statue would fit up there and it 3 feet taller than it was originally so I just want to show some images quick of construction this image shows the US Capitol with the enlarged dome by Wolfinch and these images show construction of the cast iron the way that the cast iron was erected was there was a big steam powered derrick placed right in the center of the rotunda the cast iron was brought in assembled on the ground and then raised by this derrick and this is a great picture of Abraham Lincoln standing by this steam powered derrick this image shows one of the cast iron columns they're about 30 feet tall being brought in by a team of horses and they were cast in one piece so that's a column that probably weighs 5 or 6000 pounds and is being brought in by a team of horses these images are magnificent I love to look at them closely because when we did work on the building today we take for granted the tools and equipment that we have at our fingertips realizing that in 1850 there were no power tools there was no way to drill quickly cast iron there was no way to quickly cut cast iron everything had to be done by hand when the Capitol was designed the Washington canal came right up the mall and cast iron was brought up the Potomac River and right up to the base of the almost the Capitol and then brought by teams of horses up on the Capitol Hill and this image shows that canal so the dome was assembled and the exterior dome was completed by 1863 and the exterior was completed by 1866 and this shows the dome complete with the Statue of Freedom which was installed in 1863 so the U.S. Capitol is really a work in progress its initial construction started in 1793 to 1826 and then it had its first major restoration in 1851 the east front renovation took place in 1858 to 1962 and then the west front terrace renovations took place in 1993 the Capitol visitor center was built in 2008 there was a first phase for the dome restoration that took place in 2011 and then in 2014 phase two of the dome restoration took place which was the actual work on the dome itself in 2015 another major project was started that will take seven years and that's to completely restore all the exterior stone all the way around the U.S. Capitol and that work is going on now so you'll see parts of the building that are still in scaffolding so this is the dome this shows the apotheosis of George Washington and you see that beautiful interior structure this is what the dome looked like when we started restoration George Donut was placed on the inside to protect the people in the U.S. Capitol because the U.S. Capitol was in full use during the restoration and this dome caught any debris or any dust that was taking place on the on the upper interior dome of the Capitol while that restoration was taking place this illustration shows some of the early renderings that were done by August Schoenborn and then there are images of that beautiful engineered structure during the restoration that interior space between the domes was all cleaned and repainted and it's immaculate so if you get the opportunity if you get permission from Senator King's office you can take a dome tour but you have to have an escort and it's magnificent to see when you walk up into the dome and you walk around the edge of the rotunda and pass the windows there are a series of windows that have engravings that have been made by people's diamond rings from the time the building was built until today and when we were doing the restoration I discovered a couple of those windows and I told the preservation people didn't need to make sure that all of that stays in the building and you can see dates that people inscribed the glass but it's a magnificent structure to see from the inside to do the restoration the dome had to be scaffolded scaffolding was a major piece of the contract over 55 miles of pipe scaffolding if laid from end to end it was used to scaffold the building there were enough scaffolding planks placed on the dome to create a 5 foot wide sidewalk from the dome to the Lincoln Memorial and back to the capital so it took a year to actually build the scaffolding so I received a contract to do the work in 2013 I showed up in the field in early 2014 and we waited for the scaffolding to be built so that we could get up to do our work now fortunately for us the general contractor needed a lot of other things done on the building so we had work to do that we hadn't planned on but before we could actually get into the major part of our contract we waited until that scaffolding could be built and by the end of 2014 the scaffolding was topped off clear up above the Statue of Freedom this is one of those great images of the US capital at night during a storm all lit up so why was the dome restored what were the problems that were so great that it needed to be repaired there were corroded and broken castings random fractures in the iron and missing fasteners rust-jacking there was a lot of issues with dissimilar metals where you have iron and cast iron together and the one material is more noble than the other so one dissolves faster the cast iron was more noble than the wrought iron and the building was fastened with wrought iron fasteners and those fasteners disintegrated these are images of what we found when we got on the job site these are some great big acorn finials they weigh about 350 pounds a piece there was not one thing holding those on the dome except their weight we actually picked those off when we got up there these are a lot of the cracks and what happened was a major gutter system that was built internal in the dome and over the years the cast iron expanded and contracted it had been waterproofed with caulks that were made out of linseed oil and oakum and chalk and that got brittle kind of turned into stone but through the freeze thaw and the expansion and contraction the caulking fell out and the moisture got into the inside of the dome to work on all of the fastenings and that freeze thaw created this brittle iron to go through movement which caused it to break these are ornaments that are on the capitals and we literally could pick them off like picking apples when we were up on the dome this is another area where moisture had gotten in behind parts and as cast iron deteriorates it creates a condition called rust jacking the metal begins to expand and it actually blows itself apart so as moisture would get in behind parts as the fasteners would deteriorate and as the rust grew it literally was tearing itself apart and this is an example of some of that iron that we took off the building other parts were full of debris and rust these are fasteners that we pulled out that you can see the electrolysis where all of the threads and the fasteners disintegrated and in some cases we could just pull the fasteners right out of the building so there were a series of repair methods that were developed to take care of the capitals now as one of America's greatest treasures it's treated like a museum artifact as we started the restoration just when we were really ready to go we discovered that in the 1960s when they done repairs on the dome they had caulked all of those repairs with asbestos caulk and 14 miles of asbestos caulk had to be removed from the dome there was a repair method you can't weld cast iron with any longevity and a repair method was discovered that was developed in Germany to repair engines in great big ships and it's called lock and stitch and basically it's a mechanical fastening method where you take a crack it's drilled and then fasteners are put in and they're ground off flush and then there's a vertical dog bone stitch that is mortised into the iron and driven in and ground smooth you'll see some of that as we go through then there's the lead abatement so the dome was cast iron but it was painted with lead paints so the entire dome had to be completely sandblasted and all of the lead abated so that the repair work could be done and all of that had to be done without affecting any of the general public so think of this the building is in operation you have one of the biggest lead abatement projects going on at the same time so to do that lead abatement the scaffolding was enclosed in containments and then those areas were sandblasted the repairs took place in the containments and we worked our way around the building the dome can be divided into 32 pi sections and one of the amazing things about cast iron is everything can be manufactured and built sort of like an erector set there's just a kit of parts so if you have a column capital it has a kit of parts and all of those parts are identical on all 32 columns now it's interesting to note that the column capitals we discovered when we took them apart are comprised of over 300 castings for each capital this shows the lock and stitch method you can see a string of threaded pins that have been put along a crack and they're being ground smooth this image shows a repair that was done with lock and stitch you can see the threaded inserts and then the dog bones that cross that and then it was all ground smooth and then painted and those repairs are stronger than the original cast iron in this job there were over 14,000 inches of lock and stitch that had to be installed it takes two mechanics an hour to do one inch so you get an idea of how many people and how much time was involved in that effort this shows mechanics doing that lock and stitch repair the other repairs that were done on the job you can't well cast iron like I said but you can braise it and a series of repairs were done on small ornaments that could be removed and braised and assembled versus recasting those parts then there were a whole series of mechanical repairs when the column capitals had to be restored they were originally assembled and set on the columns and then the dome was built around them and all the fasteners were on the inside of these capitals with no way to access them so we had to develop a method to remove the fasteners and then reinstall the parts fastening from the other side and that was taken care of and then there were a whole series of repairs where there were holes and things that needed to be filled and those were all done with epoxy repairs replicating missing castings and broken cast iron it's a really fascinating process starts with field documentation so I was really fortunate in this restoration to have a young team of craftsmen on my particular team I had 11 young guys on my crew two were classically trained architects I had a couple of metal workers a sculptor and then some skilled metal workers but first you have to document what you have to make and these are field notes for our workbooks when we were looking at what parts needed to be manufactured so we had the use of modern technology and we could digitally scan components we could take them off the building scan them with the scanner and then create a 3D model and from that 3D model we could design and make patterns and interpret those in shop drawings and a lot of the parts there were just fragments of them on the building when we took the components off the building we didn't know what they were originally but we had to re-engineer and redesign them so that they would work in their locations we also used an ancient method of making models by making plaster molds and we would take a component off the building and create a plaster mold of it if we didn't have our digital scanner then we could send those molds out to the foundry and they could use those molds to create patterns to replicate parts foundry patterns are made of wood rubber or plastic and when I said earlier in the presentation that cast iron shrinks an eighth of an inch per foot as we were manufacturing parts that had to go back on the dome exactly we had to figure out a way to make those parts fit by creating a pattern that was larger than the part actually needed to be so that when it was cast it would shrink to the right size and we devised a really ingenious way one of our pattern makers we'd create a rubber mold and then from that rubber mold we would figure out a series of pins and we could stretch that mold to get it to the right size it needed to be to make a pattern and then we'd use that pattern to actually cast the part that would shrink back to the right size these are images of those patterns the foundry process is about the same as it was during the time that the US capital was built essentially there's a pattern that is put together it could be wood or plastic and those patterns are molded in sand and then molten metal is poured into that sand mold and the sand mold is broken and the castings are taken out of the sand and then they're cleaned up one of the great things about cast iron is it's very moldable when it's molten and it's poured into a mold it's got really good details and we could capture all the detail in the capital one of the things that we devised along the way we were taking all this material off the dome that seemed like it was junk and we were able to take that cast iron and melt it down and realloy it and use it in the new castings so really a true green material we could actually use the metal that came from the building in the new parts that were going back up on the dome during the restoration probably the two major areas that had the most work that needed to be done up at the Tholos level up below the Statue of Freedom that balustrade had to be completely removed it was in a serious state of disrepair and it was disassembled and carried down the dome so we had 287 feet of scaffolding and we had all this metal at the very top of the dome it had to be carried by hand we had three lifts and but it had to be carried and lowered to the ground and then it was crated up and shipped to our plant in Utah where we were able to re-lay out that Tholos balustrade that we could use manufacture all the new parts and then it was taken back and reinstalled carried up the building and reinstalled back on the dome and to complete that part of the work one of the things that we discovered during this part of the restoration was we had assumed that the dome was perfectly round and when we took the Tholos balustrade off we took all of these accurate measurements but you couldn't measure through the center spiral staircase in the center of the top of the Tholos and the dome is actually elliptical up there it's not round so when we laid this out in our shop of course we lay it out in a perfect circle and then we bring it back and we start installing it and parts don't fit we had to cut and fit every single part on that Tholos and to make it fit and go back together again there were many all of the dome is highly ornate you'd never imagine and the scale of the ornament on the dome is incredible you have to stand next to it to really appreciate it but all of the ornament applied ornament came off of the dome was disassembled, cleaned reassembled and refascined and then reinstalled on the dome we discovered the column capitals and the serious deterioration that was there after the lead abatement we were able to go in and explore take column capitals apart and then take pieces this is one corner scroll there are four of these on every column capital and each scroll is made up of over 20 parts but completely come apart have to be reassembled and then reinstalled this shows new parts getting ready to go up on the dome and this is the reassembly of those column capitals and that's a completed capitol so you never would imagine the level of detail until you're up close the thing that I was amazed by how close the actual cast iron is to the original Thomas U. Walter drawings and on the interior of the dome and on the exterior of the dome we could actually refer to his original drawings and they're very, very close the boilerplate balustrade was another major area that was a problem at the capitol and that was because this where all these gutters came together and they had all deteriorated we ended up taking 54 gutters out of the balustrade and then re-installing, casting new gutters and reinstalling them and then reinstalling that whole balustrade on the U.S. capitol so these new gutters will ensure another easily 150-200 years of life to the dome the water was redirected into the gutters and they were improved so that those problems that had occurred up until then will not happen again after the dome was sandblasted it had to be painted and there was a crew of over 100 painters that worked for a year painting the dome building up the paints to the appropriate thicknesses so you don't understand that cast iron is somewhat porous and the castings after they've been sandblasted all of the porosity is exposed so you have cavities in the cast iron if moisture gets in those they weep rust so the cast iron had been sandblasted but then it had to be prime painted and then coated with epoxy all of those holes filled and then re-coated there won't be any rust staining to take place on the dome in the future this shows images of the guys doing the painting and the caulking and the waterproofing there are 32 big glass windows that were handmade around the dome five of those had to be replaced that glass was re-manufactured out in a glass factory just like it was made when the building was originally built and that glass was re-installed this is our crew our responsibility was specifically to disassemble and reassemble the dome and provide all of the new cast iron ornament there were several other people involved in the project when the when the dome was complete we came to the point when we were putting the last piece of ornament on the building and Stephen Ayers the architect of the capital came and actually installed that last piece of ornament but the capital dome restoration was really an incredible collaboration of artists and craftsmen it wasn't any one person or even the general contractor it was a collaboration of everybody artists, glass specialists decorative painters pattern makers mechanics electricians, plumbers and it's that kind of united brotherhood that I fell in love with I am a firm believer that there is a red thread that ties us all together and the things that happened on this project to make it a success where people came in exactly at the right time to do their specific piece of the job it was really kind of miraculous to see it happen there was a tremendous spirit of brotherhood of the craftsmen now a lot of the employees that were working on the exterior of the dome were from different nationalities and there were lots of Latinos all of the asbestos that was removed from the building was removed by a team of Latino women and they were amazing and we would have lunches on Friday and they'd bring their food and we'd bring our food and it was it was just a wonderful collaboration there was a tremendous spirit there I think the job that was done by everybody who was involved in the project and far exceeded I think what the government really expected because everybody knew that they were working on something extremely special I know that in our case there were lots of things that were done that we did just to make sure that there would not be problems down the road and I know that was the case with a lot of the other people involved in the project the project was completed in 2016 and it was completed just in time for the inauguration to take place so these are images if you could have seen the dome while you saw pictures of the dome up close when it was completed these images are you know really amazing and it was a wonderful project to work on so a lot of the images that you'll see if you go to the AOC's website and you're looking at the dome they were all images that were captured by this gentleman his name is Charles Badal and he shot and saved over 25,000 images of the restoration and documented that whole thing for the US capital and for the architect of the capital an incredible guy so I just want to take another second and just talk about some of the fun stuff that happened there and on the dome during the restoration there's a tremendous amount of wildlife in Washington DC you would never imagine what we came across when we were working on the project we had bald eagles fly over we had eagles that were regularly on the dome there were red foxes and this little guy found his way up to the Statue of Freedom and the painters the painters went up in the morning and there was this raccoon that was just cornered at the top of the scaffold he couldn't go anywhere and somebody went and got one of these safe traps and they got him in it and then they took him over to the National Arboretum and let him go but you would never imagine too that at 280 feet in the air there's as many bugs as there are I mean flies and insects and they are just everywhere I don't know if they're blown in the trade wind or what but it was an amazing experience I just want to say thanks for letting me have the opportunity to come and visit with you about this project and we've got time for a couple of questions if there's four questions somebody has a question they want answered we'll take just a couple yes no questions I'm not sure which is which at the beginning you mentioned that the fasteners were dissimilar to that was that what from the original ok so the fasteners were dissimilar from the cast iron was that a problem of clutching or what no it wasn't cast iron ok cast iron is extremely brittle but it was fastened by the iron fasteners that were hand forged and I actually they may not know I don't think they understood at that time that there was going to be an issue with the dissimilar metals my other question is if you had a kit of the entire if you had a kit of all the parts that were required to make the gull how many parts would make one full set of parts how many unique parts there are there are unique parts there are probably thousands unique parts I just want to finish that by saying when the restoration was done all of the fasteners were changed to stainless steel which will have no reaction to the cast iron so that will never be a problem again yes I have no idea I have no idea in comparison to this building I think the budget the budget for the US capital and I don't know that anybody will ever really know the exact amount that was spent I mean it was roughly around 30 million dollars but it started at about 80 million to do the exterior but then when they started working on the exterior they decided to do the interior cast iron dome at the same time which was done which was really needed to all be done at the same time and a lot of things were addressed so that will never have to happen again but in comparison to what it's going to take to do this building I don't have a clue but it's worth saving well I don't the thing that is amazing is the house and senate that's their offices it's senator king's office and that building is such a significant symbol that it's extremely well cared for I've worked on hundreds of buildings in my career across the country and there are none that have the preventative maintenance that is like the US capital in fact it would be really a blessing if a lot of the buildings I've worked on had that kind of care the capital was in a serious state of disrepair but it was also cared for so that makes a huge difference so this will be the last question and then I'll hang around after I can answer some questions but the paint was a epoxy polyurethane system and the caulks were polysulfide caulks NP1 was the primary paint system basically it's a caulk that can be painted and it was used in the project I'd have to say as an architect I'm totally in awe of the story that Robert told it is just truly amazing all I can say is wow that's incredible and as president of this organization by the way my name is Paul Stevens I can't think of a lecture that we could have had that speaks so much to the mission of this organization which is to support and has been the mission of our organization for 200 years which is to support artists craftsmen and tradesmen in our community and I think we just saw a tremendous example of what trained craftsmen and tradesmen can do in addition to thanking Robert who I think just wandered in here by accident is how this lecture got scheduled thank Robert and thank Senator King for coming and presenting this tonight I follow Senator King on Instagram as all of you should do and it's fun it's great fun to do and as Chandra will test do he actually responds to you sometimes when you make a comment which is wonderful to have a senator that can exchange ideas like that with us I think in closing I would like to thank all of our patrons and sponsors we as an organization raised an enormous amount of money with this event tonight and thank you to everybody that helped make that happen to the committee and to our sponsors and I think I want to give a special thanks and sort of recognition to one of our major sponsors which is Turner Construction and Turner Construction was the general contractor for this project and as many of you may know Turner is currently doing the very large addition and renovation to Maine Medical Center here in town so I think at the end if you have time well you certainly are welcome to come up and ask some more questions but please stop in the exhibit downstairs on the way out many of the photographs that Robert referred to are on display as well as copies of some of those wonderful Thomas Walter architectural drawings and actually there are some samples of the cast iron work that Robert's company did and pick some of that up and feel how heavy it is it's pretty awesome it really is and I think I definitely want to thank and Robert who curated the exhibit for us and that exhibit opened last first Friday and it will be open until the first of next month so thank you all for coming and thank you all for your support and I hope that you will continue to come to events here, thank you