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(Above) Northern Bedrock crew at the historic Duluth Armory (from left to right: Alexandra Kosik, Jennifer Sustar, Meghan Weber, Anne Ketz (Crew Leader), Zach Small).
Northern Bedrock Historic Preservation Corps
October 2014 Demonstration Projects: Week 1
Northern Bedrock's first crew hit the ground running during their first week. We are thrilled to have a crew motivated to learn about the trades, use their hands, and meld as a team.
This past week the crew visited and toured the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Union training center in Cotton, MN as well the Jerrold Alander Training Center for The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners Union in Hermantown, MN. On Wednesday with the help of workshop attendees and volunteers the crew cleaned and reset 8 gravestones at Scandia Cemetery in Duluth, and they finished the week cleaning 1,737 historic bricks for masons restoring The Historic Duluth Armory. This week they'll be camping near Royalton, MN for a full week of restoration work on the historic McDougall Barn. Look for details on that project in our next newsletter.
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Cemetery Preservation
(Above) Northern Bedrock crew with workshop leader Jarrod Roll after a day of work preserving gravestones at Scandia Cemetery (from left to right: Alexandra Kosik, Jennifer Sustar, Jarrod Roll, Zach Small, Meghan Weber, Anne Ketz).
The crew kicked off their season with a training workshop on gravestone preservation from Save Your Stones. The crew, along with 25 other eager participants learned basic stone cleaning, resetting, and straightening procedures along with the proper tools and materials to use. The group then headed out to Scandia Cemetery on the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth to practice their new knowledge. Eight gravestones in all were cleaned and restored in the span of three hours. The hard work put in by the crew and participants is impressive. Check out the media coverage from WDIO and Duluth News Tribune.
We are grateful to the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation, Minnesota Historical Society, Armory Arts & Music Center and Scandia Cemetery for making the workshop possible for our crew and registered participants.
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Workshop instructor, Jarrod Roll of Save Your Stones, leads the crew and 25 registered participants through gravestone preservation training.
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John Bredeson, fourth generation caretaker for Scandia Cemetery, shows the workshop group the original plot map for the cemetery.
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Workshop participant clearing trees and vegetation around a stone at Scandia Cemetery.
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Stone cleaning in progress by crew member Meghan Weber at Scandia Cemetery.
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Crew member Zach Small working with workshop participants in resetting a sunken stone at Scandia Cemetery.
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Formerly sunken gravestone after resetting and cleaning at Scandia Cemetery.
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Crew member Jennifer Sustar digging out a lawn marker stone for resetting at ground level at Scandia Cemetery.
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Crew member Alexandra (Lexi) Kosik working with workshop participants on cleaning and resetting a gravestone at Scandia Cemetery.
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Brick Cleaning
The crew ended the week cleaning mortar off of 100 year old bricks to be reused in the restoration of the historic Duluth Armory. The bricks fell from the north parapet of the armory after a heavy winter storm in 2012. Masons with Macpherson Towne were onsite tuckpointing the parapets and trained the crew on cleaning techniques using a brick hammer and chisel. The crew was able to make a significant dent in the stacked pallets of brick to be cleaned and reused in the masons' continued restoration work.
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Crew members learning how to clean mortar off bricks for reuse (left to right: Zach Small, Jennifer Sustar, Alexandra Kosik, Meghan Weber, Anne Ketz and Darrell Koffler, foreman for Macpherson Towne).
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Crew members Alexandra Kosik and Jennifer Sustar hard at work cleaning bricks at the Duluth Armory.
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Tools used at the Duluth Armory to clean dried mortar from bricks include a brick hammer and chisels.
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Darrell Koffler, mason foreman for Macpherson Towne, showing the crew the uniqueness of the size and color of the 100 year-old bricks used in the construction of the Duluth Armory (left to right: Zach Small, Jennifer Sustar, Alexandra Kosik, Darrell Koffler).
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Crew leader Anne Ketz working with crew members Meghan Weber and Zach Small cleaning bricks at the Duluth Armory.
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A brick covered with dried mortar requires cleaning before it can be reused with fresh mortar. The crew worked for two days and cleaned around 1,750 bricks. A huge help to the masons working on the restoration of the parapet walls.
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