deb,
> Ken, help me out here, do you agree with this advice? On the 
> fireplace: start w/ a bucket of water, then add Ivory Flakes and let 
> them dissolve, use a soft scrub brush to work solution into brick, let 
> it dwell a few minutes (test a patch first?), use cloth diapers or old 
> towels to blot it off, spray with plain water and blot that off. Start 
> with cold water, if that doesn't work, use warm to slightly hot water.
Yeah, pretty much I agree. Elbow work. Start w/ the method that is 
easily procured and hopefully does the least harm. But it also depends a 
whole lot on what is desired as a final result. A used fireplace is 
going to look like a used fireplace... and we are imagining what this 
one looks like. I have seen them so caked up with soot and creosote that 
you would have to use wood scrapers to get the stuff off, if anyone 
wanted to bother. I am always open to suggestions and in my late stage 
of immaturity I find that I like to follow orders.

I have another problem ahead of me in which we may have to build a 
firebox and then make it look used (possibly MT will consider a trade 
out? or at least send me pictures so that I know what I need to 
replicate). It is in a Stanford White library interior and they are 
going to put in a gas log or something. I gave one price to make the 
brick look uniformly dark, easy enough, and another price to make it 
look like it had been used for many years. Not quite sure how that is 
going to turn out, or if they will accept our cost for faking a patina. 
It will be eye candy. My essential question was, "Who is going to tell 
us what we are looking at?" Interestingly when I worked up the estimate 
it turned out to cost more for us to get the brick into the location, in 
Manhattan, on a 4th floor on a super busy street, than it would cost to 
actually build the firebox. For me an added irony is having built a 
whole bunch of real fireplaces that now I am hired to build fake ones 
for historic interiors. Though having pretty much retired from building 
fireplaces a long time ago I no longer lose sleep over the prospect of a 
house burning down. I intend to rest easier with a fake one.
> That's the way we cleaned the diesel soot and other dirt off the stone 
> on the interior above the doors in that church by the park, can't 
> remember the name.... Donald Trump's church, with the giant stone altar.
Between Xmas and New Years we are going to be over there patching the 
chips on a set of interior stone steps that the kids in the school bang 
with their book bags.

The stone altar, a large whitish flat surface, say 4' x 10'... someone 
cleaned a stain off of it (not us) and they only cleaned the stain, 
leaving a slightly clean streak top to bottom a bit left of center. When 
you are in the church w/ the lighting you do not notice the streak. But 
they had a photographer come in and they made postcards and the streak 
shows up quite obviously in all of the postcards, their solution seems 
to be to not talk about it.

We are going to be re-installing a bronze gate at some point in the 
future... the story of the bronze gate is a good one that I am not able 
to tell anyone. Today we go to another church to screw down bird spikes. 
I will make sure to listen to the screw gun, and the wind, and the sound 
of the screw turning into the wood, and the tall aluminum ladder, the 
tinkle of the stainless steel spikes as they stab my hands, I will avoid 
poking myself in the face, again, and the noise of the cars I will 
ignore and I will occasionally glance over to watch people going in and 
out of the nearby post office. Meditation in motion.

][<

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