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 -- **Please remember to trim posts, as requested in the Terms of Service** To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to: <http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>