Home to Mississippi  where its still 90 deg for a week of R&R  ;
 before heading back to Salem Mass
We are  in the last month up there so I invite 
any BP's to come over to the work shanty
for crumpets and lemonade and the ten cent tour of the Salem Witch  Museum 
which is the old 1840 "East " church situated on the common .
The tour consists of feats of arm wrestling and an impressive selection of  
Edison Coatings custom patches 
and Helifix anchoring systems.not to mention various card tricks and  
slight of hand by Py with the trowel 
Because this is "The salem witch museum "  our recommendation and  
challenge was not to replace the badly spalled ; cracked and bulging and  free 
floating Portland Brownstone 
;but to preserve it and re-anchor it to its original  brick back up  using 
the dry stainless 8mm spiral rods system that surgically grabs and locks  
the stone.in to its brick back up (1200 lb pull test) 
The Portland brownstone is a queer stone in that it has microscopic  carbon 
clay bodies within it
that swell and expand with moisture .
Most restoration contractors don't know that ;so what ever they treat it  
with in good faith often has problems down the road 
Chemical consolidation (H and OH) actually works against it as any moisture 
 from behind becomes trapped and slowed thus making it susceptive to 
cracking and  freeze thaw .(see Leland at Yale and Nat Parks paper on Brownstone 
and swelling  )
The brownstone facade here is true English Gothic ; complete with two twin  
turrets that once went another 30ft higher that its central apex ..It was 
in a  "ruined "state and had the classical Dracula appearance of such with 
cracked and  missing hood molds ;heavily spalled stone and missing 
crenellations and  cracked and weathered merloins  
.The public loved the haunted house look ; so it was our job to bring this  
character back as "a ruin" as we recreated missing detail and architectural 
 features and in some cases making  our own  cast  stone   mimicking the 
original  in color and texture.
We also recreated half patches of lost  "tooling "  that were  original to 
the stone but 75% now gone as a result of  the last few  winters .
The cast stone we fabricated  had to be  structural  and while it  worked 
against wind and rain  we made it   appear chipped and disheveled from below .
Replacing it with new stone would have appeared fresh ; it would have  
never gotten here in time . plus we would have had to tool it so as it looked  
100 years old and that didn't work in our three month schedule  
We of course removed the portland pointing  ( cracking and too hard )  and 
replaced it with the original  
and we  also removed 1840 yellow pine 17ft triforium window  for  
reinforcement and restoration ;
which we will reinstall and celebrate in the next two weeks 
October is Witch month here ;and the town is a crush of Witch goers and  
revelers reminding me as much as Guy Fawkes  day in great Britian or Mardi  
Gras In New Orleans with day long events and kids and moms in  costume ..and 
public inebriation by Dads at the  beer stalls  ........all I can say is 
welcome .....and  bring your own broom  /py      
  

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