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.

The Project

Robert Lash is a sculptor who resides in Gardiner, Maine. On March 31, 2010 the Savings Bank of Maine commissioned him to create a 20-foot sculpture for the Gardiner Waterfront Park beside the Kennebec River in Gardiner.

Gates,Leighton, the landscape arcitecture firm who is creating the design work for the waterfront park project, created a conceptual rendering of the Flood Tide Terrace where Robert's sculpture will be installed.
Lash has purchased a new MillerMatic 350P welder for the project, which produces a TIG quality weld bead and is 50% more efficient. It is perfect for welding stainless steel, from which a majority of the project will be fabricated. He also purchased over 2,800 lbs of 11 gauge, type 316 stainless steel to start the project with.

Last fall, Robert purchased three enormous gears from the former Augusta Tissue Mill sight that was being torn down. Two of these massive gears will be incorporated into the base of the sculpture, as shown in the picture above.

Robert first found the gears when he and his wife toured the Augusta Tissue Mill just before it was demolished. This is a photo they took at the time:


After some negotiation with the contractor who was demolishing the mill buildings, Lash was able to purchase the gears, each gear ranging in weight from half a ton to a ton. Special equipment was required to transport and deliver the gears.