INTERVIEWS
|
Doris
Park
Max-Cast Art Foundry
|
JACK
SHEPARD INTERVIEWS DORIS PARK FOR STORY ON IOWA STATE CAPITOL
RENOVATION
Interviewed May 10, 2000
JACK
SHEPARD: Tell me what you folks do here at Max Cast.
DORIS
PARK: We're an art foundry here. We cast metal objects. We
usually cast works of art, either our own or other peoples', but
we also do, other small objects. We're doing the historic replications
pieces for the Capitol. It's quite an exciting project to be part
of.
JACK
SHEPARD: Tell me what we saw today, when we were taking pictures.
DORIS
PARK: That was our bronze melting operation. We have a furnace
in the back there and we melt bronze. Our furnace runs at several
thousand degrees. We melt the bronze and heat it to 2100 degrees,
and then we pour it into our prepared molds. The ones that you
saw today are ceramic shell molds -- that's our modern process.
The pieces are made first in wax, with the use of a rubber mold
that was made on the original hardware from the state Capitol.
It is then coated with our ceramic shell material, and the wax
is melted out. Then we preheat those molds, and pour them with
our hot molding bronze. After that, we cool them off, and chip
them out, usually with just a hammer or some kind of air tool
and chip off all of the ceramic shell.
JACK
SHEPARD: How long does the process take from start to finish?
What kind of time are we talking about, from when you've got the
order until it is finished?
DORIS
PARK: It's a very complicated process and there's a lot of
preparation. We started with the original antique hardware. We
clean it up, mount it on boards, make rubber molds on that, and
use that to make our waxes.
JACK
SHEPARD: Why are some of these things replaced?
DORIS
PARK: They've worn out in some cases. I think they've also
put in more doors and other changes, as the Capitol was expanded.
In fact, they're trying to make some of the newer parts look like
the old.
JACK
SHEPARD: They sent you some old pieces to copy, is that right?
DORIS
PARK: Right. Some of the pieces that they had that were original
had been replaced. I know that they had gone through and taken
out some of those beautiful old, oak doors, and replaced them
with modern hollow cored doors, and put in hinges from somewhere
else.
JACK
SHEPARD: What's distinctive about the hardware, or the grillwork
that you've been doing? What do you think of the quality of the
original construction, back in 1884?
DORIS
PARK: Oh, those old things are amazing! I really like historic
restoration. I'm really in awe of the quality that they were able
to produce back then and that it's held up for 100 years or so.
I've really been amazed at the high quality of work that was done
in the 1800's. The pieces that were brought in to us, to copy
were still in very good shape. Others were worn. Still others
had been modified in some way, by someone along the way, trying
to fix something or make it work better. I think they're doing
a really nice job. They're really trying to get the original hardware
replicated, so that it's very authentic. The casting process that
we're using hasn't changed that much, since the time when those
were cast. I think we have a few modern improvements, but, essentially,
it's down to pouring that molten metal into some kind of a mold,
and that's what they did back then too.
JACK
SHEPARD: How do you feel being a part of something that's
going to be in our state's Capitol for the next 100 years or longer?
DORIS
PARK: I like to think that it will be there for the next hundred
years. I'm pretty proud of what we've done here. We've managed
to solve a lot of technical problems, and make the system work.
We have had to adapt our replicated old hardware to the modern
locksmiths, so the doors will open and shut, and all the systems
will work. At the same time, we've kept the hardware as authentic
as we can.
I
personally like historic restoration a lot, and I definitely feel
that this is an important project. It's going to be really splendid
when it's done, and I'm proud to have made a contribution to it.
We've enjoyed working on it.
JACK
SHEPARD: Did you take any special steps to insure that your
products are as close to duplicates as the ones you received?
DORIS
PARK: Yes, we did. We made a lot of molds off the originals.
In some cases, where we had to modify them, we worked off the
waxes made from the original pieces, and we changed them to adapt
to some of the modern considerations. The only actual new pieces
we've made are our lever handles, and those are being put in because
of the handicapped accessibility act. We created lever handles
that matched the original hardware, and looked as close as we
could get to what they would have made back then, if they were
making lever handles.
I
did quite a lot of the original pattern work on the grills for
setting these pieces up, and figuring out how to cast them, how
to make the patterns, and how to make the molds. I made the first
round of lever handles. We later had a sophisticated, computerized
pattern-making machine make a lever handle with straighter edges
than I could get in my original wax piece. We start with the drawing
and then we adapt it to the lockset.
JACK
SHEPARD: Are you looking forward to having your grandchild,
or whomever else, open the door to the Capitol and use the handle
that you made?
DORIS
PARK: That would be great. I don't have any grandchildren
yet, but perhaps they'll tour the Capitol someday and see the
hardware, and if I'm around, I can point to it and say, "We made
that." Actually, it's really hard to tell from the original pieces
that they put back in. And that's good. That's one of our objectives--is
to match it closely. We do have it marked so that in the future,
they're restoring the Capitol again and they look at that hardware,
they will be able to tell it apart. If they take those hinges
apart, on the inside, it says, "MADE BY MAX CASTS, 1998."
