Memphis Tennessee Temple

Memphis, Tennessee · 2018 – 2019
Taken over mid-contract · 3 months
Parkway Construction

General Contractor: Parkway Construction
Our Role: Non-ferrous sub to the
structural steel contractor
— takeover
Materials: C385 Architectural Bronze
316 Stainless · Glass
Finish: Brushed antique brass patina,
clear coat / wax
Quantity: 100 LF bronze
200 LF stainless
Duration: 3 Months

No shop drawings.
Half-built parts.
Three months.

We did not start this job. We were brought in to finish it — after the original subcontractor failed to perform on the contract, leaving behind parts at every stage of production and virtually no shop drawings to explain them.

The second fabricator on the job

We were not the general contractor's subcontractor here. We were the structural steel contractor's. They had a non-ferrous package they do not self-perform, they had hired another firm to build it, and that firm did not deliver.

A temple has a dedication date. It does not move because a subcontractor failed, so everything a stalled package costs comes out of the schedule of whoever picks it up.

We took the contract, finished the fabrication, hand-applied every bit of the finish — brushed surface, antique brass patina, clear coat — and installed it. Three months, start to finish.

Rows of architectural bronze rail stock and newel components in the shop under warm light

01 — The takeover

Reading the intent out of the parts

There were virtually no shop drawings. What we inherited was a stack of hand-drawn sketches and copies of the design drawings with dimensions written on them in pen — and inventory: machined newel components, extruded cap rail, panel frames, some finished, some rough, some cut and never assembled.

Before a single hour of productive work could happen, someone had to determine what the original fabricator had been building — reverse-engineering the design intent out of physical parts and the architectural drawings, then deciding which of those parts were usable and which had to be made again.

Nobody pays for that. It is absorbed, or the date slips.

Turned bronze newel components and rail stock staged in the shop during the takeover — Inherited inventory. Some usable, some not.

02 — The finish

Every square inch of patina went on by hand

C385 architectural bronze does not arrive looking like this. The specified finish was a brushed antique brass patina, sealed with clear coat or wax — and on a package of machined posts, turned balusters, molded cap rail, panel frames and flat plate, there is no machine that does it.

It is hand work, and it runs in sequence. Brush the surface to a consistent grain across parts with completely different geometries. Patina it dark. Relieve that dark patina back by hand with a light abrasive. Then heat it briefly with a torch — an oxidizing flame — to bring up the deep golden color. Then clear coat.

Every component has to match every other component, because they end up inches apart in a quiet room under good light. The torch step is the one with no margin: it is brief, it is judged by eye, and a part taken too far does not sand back. It starts again at bare metal.

Gloved hands hand-sanding a bronze rail section with abrasive paper on the shop floor — Hand work, by grit, part by part.

03 — The part nobody expects

It was our first bronze package

We had built aluminum. We had built a great deal of stainless. When Memphis came to us — a rescue, on a compressed schedule, in a material with its own finishing chemistry — we had never fabricated a bronze rail package before.

We said yes, and then made it true. The work in these photographs is the result.

Bronze has been core scope ever since. It is the third leg of what we do, it is the metal fewest shops in the Intermountain West will touch, and this is the job where we learned it — under the worst possible conditions, which is generally how it sticks.

Finished bronze newel post with cast finial and ornamental panel detail installed at the temple — Finished newel and finial, installed.

Bronze baptistry guardrail with glass infill panels installed around the font — Baptistry guardrail, bronze with glass infill

Bronze panel frames with glass infill assembled on the shop fixture table — Glass infill panels, assembled in the shop

Wall-mounted bronze handrail installed on a finished interior wall — Wall-mounted bronze handrail

3 mo

Takeover to complete

1st

Bronze package we'd ever built

100 LF

Architectural bronze

200 LF

Stainless ramp rail

Package stalled? We've taken one over before.

A subcontractor who isn't performing is a schedule problem long before it is a metal problem. If you are staring at a package that has to be finished by a date that will not move, send us what you have — even if what you have is a pile of parts.

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Memphis Tennessee Temple

The second fabricator on the job

Reading the intent out of the parts

Every square inch of patina went on by hand

It was our first bronze package

Package stalled? We've taken one over before.

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