Base In Place

The Rising's base was brought to Gardiner's Waterfront Park on a flat bed. It was lowered by crane onto a concrete footer with rebar, drainage and electrical conduit sticking up out of it.

It was a tricky process to lower the 6,000 pound base precisely into position, but everything went smoothly.

After installing the up-lighting and connecting the electrical, the next step was to fill the base with concrete. It was a cool, damp day, but that didn't stop the crew from getting the job done.

After filling the base, the concrete pad was poured around the base. Come flood or ice dam - this base isn't going anywhere for several hundred years!

Painstaking bricklaying has been done over the concrete pad and the sidewalks.

This picture shows how perfect the brickwork is - right up to the bottom gear of the base. They did an outstanding job!

There was a ribbon cutting ceremony in October for the Waterfront Park. The sculpture was not yet installed, but Rob was there and got to meet Senator Susan Collins who gave the keynote address. Senator Susan Collins, Robert Lash and Earl McCormick (Local Senator) pose for a picture, below.

The Rising Sculpture is completely finished. The next step is a delicate one: transporting it one mile to its final home at the Waterfront Park. If the weather cooperates, we hope the installation will happen in the next ten days. Then there will be some final polishing and perfecting on site. The final stage of this immense project is in sight!

An "Unveiling" is planned at the Waterfront Park in Gardiner on November 19th at 1PM. All are welcome to attend!!

Moving the Base

Today the base is being moved from Robert's studio, to the Waterfront Park in Gardiner. Since the Rising sculpture has been built on top of the base, it has to be carefully lifted off the base and then the base removed from under it. To accomplish this process without harming the sculpture, Robert and his crew have done some careful planning.

First, straps are attached to the Rising sculpture at several points to try to keep it balanced when it is lifted.

The crane lowers it's hook into position.

Robert attaches the straps to the crane hook.

The bolts are loosened that hold the sculpture to the base, and then the crane lifts the 1,000 pound sculpture slowly and carefully.

Robert and Andrew attach a wooden framework to the base of the sculpture to keep it straight and give it something to sit on once the base is removed.

The crane lifts the sculpture even higher, and it moves slightly from side to side. Everyone is holding their breath.

The fork lift comes in to pick up the three ton base, and the sculpture has to be moved even higher.

Success!

This photo is taken from underneath the sculpture as it gently swings from the crane hook.

Now the base is transported to the Waterfront park sight, where it will be permanently installed, the electrical will be connected for the lighting, and it will be filled with concrete. The sculpture will stay at the studio for more finishing work.

Welding, Grinding, Polishing, Welding

All nine individual forms that make up the sculpture have been plasma cut, glued, welded, ground and polished. The process was very much like making nine individual sculptures. Combined, they represent a football field length of welding, and twice that of grinding and polishing. The surface of each has been worked with abrasives, starting with aggressive ones to remove the weld slag, and gradually moving to finer and finer abrasives until the entire surface of each has a uniform, glowing satin finish. It is painstaking, labor intensive work, and Rob is incredibly grateful to his friend Andrew Wilson for volunteering many of his hours to help with the polishing process. Two of the completed forms are shown here on the studio floor:

Scaffolding has been set up around the sculptural base, and Rob is welding the individual pieces together. The cooler fall air and lower humidity makes for a much nicer outdoor work environment.

One can begin to get a feeling for the scale of the sculpture. Rob is on schedule to have the welding done by the end of this week, so the sculpture can be removed from the base, and the base transported to the Gardiner Waterfront Park to be wired for lighting and filled with concrete.

After the base is removed, Rob will work on the sculpture at his studio, to remove any excess welding material that is visible, and re-polish around each welded joining point. The photograph below shows the sculpture with six forms assembled, leaving only three more to go.

Assembly

Robert has finished the fabrication of the first three pieces that make up the lower tier of Rising. Yesterday, with the help of his friend Andrew, and son John, he placed the three pieces together on the sculptural base. After several hours of maneuvering and positioning, the pieces are attached to the base, and join together as they should. Today he will be welding the pieces together, and then finishing the welds.

This is an exciting time as the sculpture starts to take shape, and one can imagine how truly amazing it will be when all three tiers are assembled. The satiny glow of the stainless steel contrasts beautifully with the industrial cast iron gears and corten base. All the painstaking welding, griding and finishing of the pieces pays off in the perfection of the graceful lines, and smooth finish.

Tier One

The ground work at the Gardiner Waterfront Park's sculpture site is in progress. A large hole has been dug, along with drainage. Conduit has been installed and crushed stone put in place. The first pour of concrete has been done with re-bar, drains and electrical conduit (for lighting). The second pour will happen, and then the sculptural base will be moved into position.

The three contact points that will hold the sculpture to the base have been created. Each is a steel box mounted on the inside of the cylinder, that will be accessible from the outside of the base through stainless steel cover plates laser etched with text. The top of each contact point is stainless steel exactly even with the top of the base, so that when the concrete is poured inside the cylinder, the tops will be flush. Stainless steel bolts will hold each of the bottom tier sculptural pieces to the base's contact points.

Using his plasma cutting tool, Robert has cut out all 18 profiles for the sculptural pieces. There are nine total pieces, 2 small, 4 medium, and 3 large, and each has two profile pieces. He is now joining the profiles together using an new, high tech, high strength adhesive (the same adhesive that the military uses to attach armored plating to it's vehicles). Using the adhesive instead of welding the interior supports avoids welding pull or shrink marks on the exterior of the forms.

Anchor bolts are welded in place that will attach the first tier of forms to the base. These three forms have been notched and welded, and the sides that will close each form are being cut and welded. The first three pieces will stand eight feet high above the base. This photo shows the large and small stainless piece of the first tier (with protective paper taped to them), along with a model of the medium piece (made from blue foam core). The pieces are being fit together to carefully align the first tier on the base.

Top Gear

The gear for the top of the sculpture's base has been installed, as shown in these photos below.

With advice from a structural engineer, Robert has developed a system for attaching the sculpture to the base in such a way that it will be extremely secure. Once the site is prepared, the base will be installed, anchored to the underground concrete block, and then filled with concrete.

Robert is currently fabricating steel templates to be used for cutting out the stainless steel plate with his plasma cutter. More pictures coming soon!

Base

The first part of the sculpture that needs to be fabricated is the base. The base will consist of the largest of the three gears, a round steel form on top of it, filled with concrete, and then a second large gear on top. It is far more complex than it sounds; the three pieces cannot simply be stacked one upon another. First, the excess dirt and foreign matter must be cleaned from the gears, while still leaving enough rust to make them look as old as they are. Below, the largest gear is shown after being moved to just outside Robert Lash's studio door.
The round steel form was subcontracted to a company in New Gloucester that has giant rollers specifically made for curving large sheets of heavy steel. Rob brought the650 lb steel cylinder form back to Gardiner in his pickup truck.After beefing up a crane he had previously built on the roof of the studio, he was able to lift the cylinder out of the truck and onto the gear.
He then discovered that the cylinder was not perfectly round. He created three turnbuckles, placed 120-degrees apart, to push and pull the form from the inside to make it perfectly round.

Next, he carefully measured and cut six openings in the bottom of the cylinder, so that it would fit exactly onto the spokes of the wheel.

Not only will the cylinder be filled with concrete, but the concrete will extend five feet below the base underground to ensure stability of the base and sculpture, so that it can withstand severe weather conditions and river flooding. But it's not ready yet. Robert must fabricated the internal bracing which will hold the threaded stainless steel rods in place, which will anchor the sculpture. In order to do that, he must know exactly how the bottom pieces of the sculpture will contact the base.

Next, he creates full scale replicas of the three bottom pieces of the sculpture out of ridged blue Styrofoam. They must be identical is size and shape to the stainless steel pieces he has designed for the sculpture. This picture shows the inside of one such model.
On a piece of plywood he has drawn an exact outline of the shape of the upper gear. In this photo, the three bottom Styrofoam models are balanced on the gear outline so that he can calculate the exact entry points for the stainless steel anchor rods. You can see his original small scale (2"=1') model at the base of the three Styrofoam pieces.