Becker’s Blog #5: The Mock-up
I was aware of these circles; they’re also present in the St. Paul Cathedral floor in St. Paul, Minn., which was also designed by Emmanual Masqueray more than 90 years ago. The circles are formed by separate stones jointed together around the perimeter to form a basket-weave pattern.
My first reaction was “that’s cool!” as the different shades of the Tennessee marble made each circle unique. My common sense then took over and realized the difficulty in making and installing four pieces per circle. Plus, in one of the circles, two out of the three stone points had chipped off long ago, and an ugly epoxy patch took its place.
We in the stone industry, when given an option, avoid feathering stone to a point. There is no structural integrity to a stone point – especially in Verde Issorie marble.
The original St. Paul Cathedral work was early 20th century; now, in the early 21st century, technology definitely changes how you can do things. With water-jet technology in mind, Agostino and I decided to promote a solid piece for the ring. There would be more waste, but the savings in fabrication and installation would offset the cost of extra stock. The architect’s color renderings weren’t conclusive about separate-piece or solid circles, so I figured we had a good chance to sell our idea.
The trip to Italy took place in January 2009, which was also a low point of our economy. Any church project relies on contributions, so a bad economy can mean bad news for construction projects. The architect and the client told me this project would be moving forward, but the scope of the work, due to financial reasons, wasn’t finalized.
I’ve learned many things in our industry; one of them is to be a “glass-half-full” guy when terminology like “scope not finalized” is used. Other people in the construction trades, such as carpet or drywall or tile workers, don’t know how insecure we stone contractors can get. When there are budget problems, we’re always the first to go.
It must have been around five in the afternoon on the second day of slab inspection that Agostino and I decided the best way to sell our idea about stone jointing would be to fabricate a mock-up and ship it to Sioux Falls.
We started small with thoughts of a 4’ X 4’ square showing the circle in one piece and a couple other colors touching the circle. The more we talked, the more we realized that maybe – just maybe – the mock-up could pull double-duty as fund raising tool to help with donations. We finally settled on a 16’ X 8’ mock-up showing all the colors in the walkways. Even though we weren’t under contract and wouldn’t charge for this mock-up, our chances were good that a dime spent now may result in making a dollar later.
Agostino rushed the mock-up through his shop so it could make a February container bound for one of our other projects in Minnesota. In the meantime, I worked with the client about a place for the mock-up. Even though it was basically of a gift from us, finding a suitable location for a 128 ft² piece of flooring was much-more-difficult than we imagined.
The owner selected the narthex (entry lobby) for the location; the area between the doors would attract many parishioners. On April 2, 2009, two installers from Syverson Tile and Stone joined me in putting together the mock-up. We though it would be best not to glue the stone to the old stone floor, so we used pads of silicon.
In the weeks to follow the architect, owner, and parishioners got to see the stone up close for the first time. The comments I heard were positive – so the decision to bring in the mock-up, even without a contract in hand for the stone, proved to be the correct one.
Thanks for reading.
Joe Becker
Twin City Tile and Marble Company
St. Paul, Minn.
Joe Becker has been in the natural-stone business for 26 years. He started with Cold Spring Granite as a draftsman and spent time in their stone installation and estimating departments. He is currently Vice President of St. Paul, Minn.-based Twin City Tile and Marble Company and oversees their stone operations.
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