Page 14 - Demo

14 | January 2025
Slippery Rock Gazette
Stone Restoration and Maintenance Corner
The Parish Church of St. Joseph the Worker
Carl and Patricia Staples, owners of Classic Marble & Stone Restoration, have been friends,
peers and customers of mine for at least 30+ years. I remember they came to one of my training classes back in the 1990s. They have since been operating one of the most successful stone restoration compa- nies in Broomall (outside of Philadelphia), Pennsylvania for many, many years now. The following is a case study of the project in their words. I hope you enjoy the story and get some valuable insight into a project of this nature.
The Parish Church of St. Joseph the Worker in Williamsport, PA is a 135-year old Annunciation church built in 1889. The bell tower was not capped with a pointed spire during its original construction because of the death of four men working towards its completion. The marble altar, the open vestibule, and the wooden wain- scot panels are all original to the building.
St. Joseph the Worker Church is located 3 hours from Classic Marble & Stone Restoration’s location in Broomall, PA. We realized that doing a project like this would require us and our crew to stay in Williamsport during the week, working long days and traveling back home on the weekends to take care of family, personal matters and other things.
Upon initial inspection of the project we realized that the biggest challenge was going to be able to reach all the sections of the 25 foot high Reredos/High Altar. We knew that we would need scaffolds in the rear and front of the altar with long walking boards to get from the front of the Reredos/High Altar to the rear of the struc- ture in the higher areas. There was only a maximum of 26 inches behind the struc- ture in some areas to erect scaffolding. We searched for this type of skinny scaf- folding to estimate the project and it took some time, and once located the estimat- ing processing began. On this type of proj- ect mostly everything is based on time and materials. Knowing the proper cleaning chemicals and cleaning process to use on these historic 150-year-old statues is only part of the battle. If we used the wrong chemicals the marble could be ruined. Our
Bob Murrell
M3 Technologies
Photos Courtesy Classic Marble & Stone Restoration
High Altar restoration and cleaning,
before and after. The project required special narrow-gauge scaffolding to reach all areas.
main cleaner for the Reredos structure, statues and altar rails was Prosoco Liquid Marble Cleaner. This professional product is a thick gel that is brushed on and needs to be thoroughly washed off or a residue will be left behind.
An entire day was needed for our 5-man crew to erect the scaffolding around the Reredos/High Altar. After the scaffold was erected, we split our crew into two 2-man teams and our assistant Jim King was there to assist both crews. The owners Patricia and Carl Staples got to work on the scaffolding cleaning the High Altar. Our lead technician Chris Rose started on the statue of The Blessed Mother Mary with the cleaning and the repair of her thumb. Chris removed the broken part of her thumb (pictured) drilled both ends, inserted a small pin and color matched with epoxy to reattach her thumb. Technician Mike McCormick started sanding and polishing
Careful restoration and thumb repair on a 150-year-old statue.
the top of the lower altar. Mike refinished the altar top using 120/400/800 grit dia- mond abrasives from M3 Technologies and polished the top with Majestic 5X pol- ishing compound.
We estimated 2 weeks’ time for 2 peo- ple to clean the Reredos/High Altar, with adjusting the scaffolding to get to all the different areas and levels of the structure, and 2 weeks for the 2 technicians to clean the lower statues, baptismal fountain and other structures.
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