Casey Weisdock (left) and Jean Jang (right) have been putting in many hours with trowel in hand in the effort to stop deterioration at Kilns 7 and 8. -Montana Preservation Alliance
Casey Weisdock (left) and Jean Jang (right) have been putting in many hours with trowel in hand in the effort to stop deterioration at Kilns 7 and 8. -Montana Preservation Alliance
Wickets: before (left) and once the loose brick and mortar were removed (right)
Casey has been living and working in Montana at the Western Clay Manufacturing historic brick factory. She has been blogging during her internship and highlighting some of the great conservation work happening with the Montana Preservation Alliance. The following is her recap of her third week on site, from June 23rd.
Week three
Monday: We were joined by three other UPenn students: two recent graduates, Nityaa Iyer and Cesar Bargues Ballester, and a classmate with Jean and me, Chuhan Zheng. Our cohorts began pointing brick off the bat (and continued on their areas for the rest of the week), while Jean and I spent the morning photographing kiln 8 in its entirety. After that we spent time moving corrugated metal panel that will be used to re-roof the surrounding kiln shed, some original and some new. The afternoon as well as the filler moments all week consisted of sistering more beams and reinforcing bracing for the kiln shed. I had the chance to swing a sledge hammer to knock the beams in place and screw them in with Timber Locks.
Tuesday: Walt the mason came to town and started the day off by giving us a lesson on using appropriate tools, and how to even craft your own.
We were students of Walt Morris for the rest of the week, working on rebuilding the very complicated wickets. These areas have the greatest amount of material instability and loss. We had to pull out entire loose sections and reset the brick that was able to be salvaged and replace some with other found bricks, all while tying them into the surrounding bond pattern. Walt showed us how using a level to set bricks, even in areas that are very piecemeal as well as using the right brushes and cloth to clean up your work can truly take your work to a professional grade. He certainly is a fantastic mentor as well as a very sweet and funny man. Jean and I worked on one wicket for quite some time and finished up right before 5 pm on Friday (woo)!
Casey Weisdock is a first year student in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at PennDesign. A New Jersey native, she moved to Pennsylvania to attend Temple University's Tyler School of Art, where she gained a BFA and has stayed in Philadelphia since. She is interested in Architectural Conservation Science, and specifically would like to focus on the study of brick and terracotta as a building material.
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