“What an incredible smell you’ve discovered!”
If you know that the above quote is from the original Star Wars movie, spoken by Han Solo—in frustration—to Princess Leia after she leads them into the trash compactor, then you’re just about as big a geek as I am! I thought a lot about that movie scene yesterday. Here’s why:
I got a job! I’m really excited about it too. I got a job with a company that does historic monument restoration. I accepted a three-week position so we could suss each other out, but hopefully the official job offer is going to entail restoration work in the shop as well as project management in their office. It is also going to involve a fair amount of travel—since they work on large pieces around the country—but if I’m managing projects I hope to travel to check stuff out, but then come back home to coordinate from the DC office.
Today, I spent a lot of the day cleaning calcite deposits off a marble column. When the faceted column was originally attached to it’s capital, which is the name for the decorative cap that sits on the column, and yes, it's spelled -tal, (you didn’t think you’d get thru an entry like this without a quick lesson, did you?) they used lime mortar as the connecting goo. Nowadays folks use Portland cement in construction, but originally they used lime mortar. Portland cement is harder, cures way faster, and is stronger. You don’t necessarily want those properties when connecting marble columns to capitals though! If anything moves, you want the mortar joint to crack, not the marble column. And not only does the mortar cure slowly… it never really cures completely. When it gets wet, it reacts with carbon dioxide in the air to harden. So if you mix up a batch, when it dries a hard shell forms on the outside, but the inside gets sealed away from contact with the air and just dries out. As the years go by, if the hard shell cracks for any reason—like, if something shifts—the newly exposed fresh inside hardens. It heals!
Now for the downside. If the joint is kept dry, all is well. But if the joint is exposed to water, like a slow wet drip, then the mortar will dissolve and run down the column. On it’s way down, as it drips along the surface of the marble, it reacts with the air and hardens, forming ugly gray crunchy rocky deposits along the water trail.
“How do you clean it off?”
Good question, imaginary question asker!
Well, the calcite is chemically identical to the marble, so you can’t use a solvent, it would dissolve the marble too. And the deposit is harder than the actual marble, so you can’t sand blast it off, you’d erode the marble around it quicker than the ugly deposit. So you have to patiently, and carefully, scrape it off with a razor blade or x-acto knife. This column is about twelve feet long, and about a foot in diameter. That’s a lot of surface to clean! Like I said though, the deposits are in streaks, not all over. And this column is faceted, so the sides are actually flat, not round, which helped too.
I know—even if you’ve forgotten by now—that this entry started with a Star Wars quote, so let me bring it back around for you. When I wasn’t carefully scraping the column clean, I welded up a couple of tables for the shop. (I learned to stick-weld in the process! I’m not very good yet, but it was cool!) Anyway, they keep all their scrap metal outside, leaning in a rack against the building. The problem is that back there the property, and the neighboring property, and the one behind us, all flood when it rains. It floods a lot. So I’m out there, in rubber boots, carefully walking around in muddy water which is very close to being too deep for rubber boots, and it’s cold and drizzly, and the ground is uneven, and I don’t know what I’m stepping on, and I’m trying to get this 16 foot long heavy square pipe out of the rack, and everything is sortof slippery, when one of the folks hollers out from inside the shop.
“How’s it going out there?”
I looked around and yelled back, “I’m like Han Solo in the freakin’ trash compactor out here!”
To which he replied, “Ok, well don’t let that snake monster get around your neck, and you’ll be fine!”
I had to laugh, because man, that was a good comeback!
For the rest of the day, I had Jason Kleinberg’s song “Princess Leia” in my head, which made me smile. If you haven’t heard it, you should buy his CD. He’s a great friend of mine, and his really nice website is RIGHT HERE.
Have a good week! I think I’ll post about once per week, just so you know.
I got a job! I’m really excited about it too. I got a job with a company that does historic monument restoration. I accepted a three-week position so we could suss each other out, but hopefully the official job offer is going to entail restoration work in the shop as well as project management in their office. It is also going to involve a fair amount of travel—since they work on large pieces around the country—but if I’m managing projects I hope to travel to check stuff out, but then come back home to coordinate from the DC office.
Today, I spent a lot of the day cleaning calcite deposits off a marble column. When the faceted column was originally attached to it’s capital, which is the name for the decorative cap that sits on the column, and yes, it's spelled -tal, (you didn’t think you’d get thru an entry like this without a quick lesson, did you?) they used lime mortar as the connecting goo. Nowadays folks use Portland cement in construction, but originally they used lime mortar. Portland cement is harder, cures way faster, and is stronger. You don’t necessarily want those properties when connecting marble columns to capitals though! If anything moves, you want the mortar joint to crack, not the marble column. And not only does the mortar cure slowly… it never really cures completely. When it gets wet, it reacts with carbon dioxide in the air to harden. So if you mix up a batch, when it dries a hard shell forms on the outside, but the inside gets sealed away from contact with the air and just dries out. As the years go by, if the hard shell cracks for any reason—like, if something shifts—the newly exposed fresh inside hardens. It heals!
Now for the downside. If the joint is kept dry, all is well. But if the joint is exposed to water, like a slow wet drip, then the mortar will dissolve and run down the column. On it’s way down, as it drips along the surface of the marble, it reacts with the air and hardens, forming ugly gray crunchy rocky deposits along the water trail.
“How do you clean it off?”
Good question, imaginary question asker!
Well, the calcite is chemically identical to the marble, so you can’t use a solvent, it would dissolve the marble too. And the deposit is harder than the actual marble, so you can’t sand blast it off, you’d erode the marble around it quicker than the ugly deposit. So you have to patiently, and carefully, scrape it off with a razor blade or x-acto knife. This column is about twelve feet long, and about a foot in diameter. That’s a lot of surface to clean! Like I said though, the deposits are in streaks, not all over. And this column is faceted, so the sides are actually flat, not round, which helped too.
I know—even if you’ve forgotten by now—that this entry started with a Star Wars quote, so let me bring it back around for you. When I wasn’t carefully scraping the column clean, I welded up a couple of tables for the shop. (I learned to stick-weld in the process! I’m not very good yet, but it was cool!) Anyway, they keep all their scrap metal outside, leaning in a rack against the building. The problem is that back there the property, and the neighboring property, and the one behind us, all flood when it rains. It floods a lot. So I’m out there, in rubber boots, carefully walking around in muddy water which is very close to being too deep for rubber boots, and it’s cold and drizzly, and the ground is uneven, and I don’t know what I’m stepping on, and I’m trying to get this 16 foot long heavy square pipe out of the rack, and everything is sortof slippery, when one of the folks hollers out from inside the shop.
“How’s it going out there?”
I looked around and yelled back, “I’m like Han Solo in the freakin’ trash compactor out here!”
To which he replied, “Ok, well don’t let that snake monster get around your neck, and you’ll be fine!”
I had to laugh, because man, that was a good comeback!
For the rest of the day, I had Jason Kleinberg’s song “Princess Leia” in my head, which made me smile. If you haven’t heard it, you should buy his CD. He’s a great friend of mine, and his really nice website is RIGHT HERE.
Have a good week! I think I’ll post about once per week, just so you know.
posted by Dennis at 9:57 PM
2 Comments:
That sounds like a perfect job for you! Hands on, lots of room to express your dorkiness, important to the world... it sounds great. Keep us informed, so we can see if it lives up to its potential.
Damn, you are such a geek. You probably are one of those super star wars geeks that think that the latest 3 movies weren't ever made.
Bet it felt good to clean that big, hard pole, didn't it. Yeah, you like it don't you.
Maybe, if you are a real good boy, they'll have you clean the Lincoln memorial. That way you can climb up on his lap...
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