This video shows details of how select parts were made on the very ornate copper steeple on the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Charleston, SC. Copper Exclusive shows their point of view here through photos and film.
We’ve called the area between the arch bow and the leg columns a “window sill” and it is by far the most technically complex part of this entire steeple build. Though it certainly finishes off the piece, details like this are the unheralded heroes of the project. Fellow sheet metal workers will understand what we’re talking about.
We’ve got plenty more work to still do on this part of the project as we need to spin several more copper discs and have plenty more behind-the-scenes work before we’ll be able to advance this to completion, so we’d better hurry because the truck is coming soon to transport this structure to the cathedral site. It will be sent on a flat bed. Should be a head turner going down the freeway, that’s for sure!
Our last post showed our copper cross and “dot” project. Here we take what we previously made to the next level. We are going to inset these ornaments into the recessed part of the Gothic arch bow on the cathedral tower.
To the left, you can see Erno holding the “ice cream cone” and the cross shield shapes. We will show you what steps we took to create these ornaments, and how we installed them.
Ready? Click each thumbnail to enlarge or better yet, view with PicLens to see each in a slide show. Each picture has a descriptive caption to explain what is going on.
