|
Goldie & McCulloch 1904 -
Fulford Place Brockville, Ontario
The doors of a security vault from Brockville, Ontario, were submitted to
CCI for treatment. The doors weighed at least 900 kg (2,000 lbs.) each and were
solidly built of five-ply chrome steel plates and cast iron.
The vault had been built into Fulford Place, the home of George Fulford (of
"Little Pink Pills for Pale People” fame), in 1904. It was intended
to store the family silver and other valuables. Its location between the dining
room and pantry suggests that it was to be used regularly by the servants of
the house.
Aside from its mundane function of preserving the family's possessions, the
vault was a work of art in its own right. Unlike most modern installations,
this vault boasted delicately handpainted decorations, including miniature
bucolic scenes, on all the metal parts. Lines and scrolls of gold leaf
decorated the edges and corners of the doors and framed the painted scenery.
All exposed surfaces were coated with shellac. The vault's doorframe featured
outer and inner doors made of finely crafted wood. The company's advertisements
boasted that even art critics found "beauty worthy of admiration” in
these artistic designs. A Goldie & McCulloch vault was, in the company's
own words, "an extraordinary combination of modern mechanism and
art."
Recently, staff at Fulford Place observed that cracks in the sides of the
doors had begun to widen and that a white powder was trickling out. In
addition, the doors no longer closed properly due to expansion, and the thin
sheet-steel backplates were bulging outward and were perforated in many places.
It appeared that something in the interior of the doors was expanding with
extraordinary pressure—enough to bow hardened steel plate and crack 7 mm
(1/4 in.) thick cast iron.
The original manufacturer, the Goldie & McCulloch Co. (established in
1844 in Gait, Ontario) had merged with the Babcock-Wilcox Co. in the late 1930s
and soon switched from making safes and vault doors to boilers, pumps and
compressors. The latter company still exists, but, unfortunately, no records of
the vault manufacturing and installation period survived the merger.
Nonetheless, research ascertained that during manufacture the doors had been
filled with a slurry of plaster of Paris to provide fire resistance, and then
sealed and painted. The plaster eventually initiated corrosion of the steel and
wrought iron components causing expansion, which forced the doors to crack and
burst apart. (The interior of the doors had been painted with red oxide primer
to stop corrosion; evidently this measure had failed. Later in the century, the
interiors of fireproof doors were, instead, coated with asphaltum.)
The plaster filling had to be removed before the doors could be repaired.
The only access to the interior was through the back, which entailed removing
the backplates. Because the backplates were inside the vault, they were the
thinnest part of the construction. They had been attached to the case sides by
numerous countersunk screws, the heads of which had been made invisible by
filling and painting. The screw heads were exposed by removing the filling, and
attempts were made to remove them by the conventional method—with a
screwdriver. Only two of the 58 screws responded to this approach. The rest had
to be removed by drilling through their centres, whereupon the heads fell off
and the remaining shanks were easily extracted from the threaded hole. Once the
screws were free, the backplates were lifted off to reveal the plaster filling,
cracked and distorted by expansion and discoloured by corrosion. Well over 450
kg (1,000 lbs.) of plaster were then removed from the interiors of both doors
using pneumatic hammers.
With the door cavities empty, it was possible to gain access to the
multitude of cracks and losses to the cast iron sides. The weakened areas were
reinforced from within with fibreglass, aluminum screening and filler. An
automobile body filler was found to be ideal; it was easy to apply, set
quickly, and carved and painted well.
Where the cast iron had been distorted by sustained pressure, it was
necessary to bolt reinforcing rods to the sides and to apply tension by means
of turnbuckles. Once the interior was stabilized and filled, the losses and
cracks visible on the outside were filled and then painted with a commercial,
colour-matched alkyd paint.
Attention then returned to the backplates, which were badly corroded; in
some places, all that was left was a thin lacework of unsupported paint. After
the loose corrosion was removed by corncob particle blasting, filler was
applied to all losses from the interior and backed where necessary with woven
fibreglass cloth. The fills were smoothed and air-brushed with diluted oil
paint coloured to match. The backplates were then reattached with new screws,
and all screw heads were covered with filler, finished and painted. Missing
sections of the gold striping around the edges were replaced with new gold
leaf, toned to match, and other painted details were reintegrated.
This restoration treatment appears to be unique, as no other detailed
reference to such a problem has been located. Hundreds of hours were invested
on the doors, both in developing the techniques for effective treatment and in
their application. There is no doubt that, if left untreated, the vault doors
would have deteriorated to the point of danger; the vault would have become
unsafe and a fine example of industrial craftsmanship would have been lost.
|
 |
|
