Raleigh North Carolina Temple

Raleigh, North Carolina · 2019
Second takeover from the same subcontractor
Parkway Construction

General Contractor: Parkway Construction
Our Role: Non-ferrous sub to the
structural steel contractor
— takeover
Materials: C385 Architectural Bronze
304 Stainless · Glass
Finish: Brushed antique brass patina
#4 satin stainless
Quantity: 75 LF bronze
25 LF veil frames
Duration: 3 Months

Same design.
Same failed sub.
They called us back.

Raleigh is the Memphis package again — the same bronze baptistry guardrail with glass infill, the same hand-applied antique brass patina, the same project team. And the same non-ferrous subcontractor, who failed to perform a second time. The structural steel contractor came straight back to us.

The second call is the one that counts

We were not the general contractor's subcontractor on either temple. We were the structural steel contractor's. They had a non-ferrous package they do not self-perform, they had hired someone else to build it, and that firm failed — twice, on two buildings.

Anyone can win a job once. What is worth reading here is that a steel fabricator who had just watched us pull a stalled temple package across the line handed us the next one the moment the same thing happened again.

That is the whole measure of a subcontractor, and it is not something a website can claim on its own behalf. They made the decision. We are just reporting it.

Brushed architectural bronze cap rail sections in raking light on the shop floor

01 — The advantage

The second rescue is not like the first

Memphis cost us weeks before any productive work happened — reverse-engineering a design out of half-built parts and hand-drawn sketches, working out what was usable and what had to be made again.

Raleigh came straight on the back of it, overlapping Memphis at the edges. By then we already knew the design. The machined newels, the molded cap rail, the panel frames, the patina schedule — all of it was known work.

That is why a three-month schedule was survivable twice in a row. The first one taught us the job. The second one we executed while the first was still finishing.

Turned architectural bronze newel components standing in the shop during fabrication — Known components by the second temple.

02 — The differences

Same design is not the same parts

The two packages read as one design, and they are — but "same" and "identical" are different words in a shop.

Raleigh carried its own detail changes, most visibly the flowers worked into the newel post panels. A motif change on a cast and fabricated newel is not a line item you swap. It means new detail work, new fit, and a finish that has to land exactly as it did on the first building.

The rest of the package is deliberately indistinguishable from Memphis. That is the point of a repeated design, and it only works if the shop treats the second one with the same care as the first.

Finished bronze newel post at Raleigh showing the flower motif worked into the panel detail — The Raleigh newel — flowers in the panels.

03 — The finish, again

A patina has to be repeatable

The finish is the same one Memphis got: brush to a consistent grain, patina dark, relieve it back by hand with a light abrasive, brief oxidizing torch flame to bring up the golden color, clear coat.

Doing that across one building is craft. Doing it across two buildings running back to back — parts for both moving through the same shop, more than one person holding the torch — is a process. The sequence has to be written down and the judgment taught rather than personal, because the two temples have to match each other and neither one is standing there to hold the other against.

The package also carries stainless veil frames in a #4 satin finish: a second metal, a second finish standard, inside the same three months.

Gloved hand holding a curved architectural bronze cap rail section showing the antique brass patina — The patina, matched across two buildings at once.

Bronze rail with ornamental balusters installed in a finished instruction room at the Raleigh temple — Instruction room rails

Extruded bronze cap rail sections laid out and brushed in the shop — Cap rail, brushed and ready

Gloved hand holding a patinated bronze base component with a machined opening — Component finishing by hand

2nd

Temple taken over from the same sub

75 LF

Architectural bronze

25 LF

Stainless veil frames

3 mo

Takeover to complete

Need the same package twice, to the same standard?

Repeated designs across multiple buildings are their own discipline — the second one has to match the first without the first being available to hold it against. Send us the drawings and a bid date.

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2018–2019 · Memphis, TN

Raleigh North Carolina Temple

The second call is the one that counts

The second rescue is not like the first

Same design is not the same parts

A patina has to be repeatable

Need the same package twice, to the same standard?

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