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.
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.
The president of Copper Exclusive, German native Erno Ovari, has coined a couple of terms directly applicable to this cathedral project. The scallops adorning the edges of the archway appear to him as clouds. Since that’s how he identifies this feature, that’s what we’ll call them for the remainder of this entry!
One of the first pieces we built were these “clouds”. Here to the left you can see a drawing showcasing the scale and how the clouds are to be applied.
The following are some progress pictures of how we built our clouds: (Click the thumbnails for a larger picture showing details.) These ornaments will likely be one of the last details to be installed. We have to ship all the pieces back to Charleston, and we are concerned the clouds might be damaged in the process since they protrude from the sides. Hence, we are planning to install these on site. Stay tuned to see the finished product!
