Staff Report
Carter County Times
Carter County Judge Executive Mike Malone has shared reports and photos of the Grayson doughboy statue restoration, detailing the repairs being done by McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory in Oberlin, Ohio.
Repairs to the feet, which snapped when the interior support structure failed last fall, have been completed and the statue reattached to the base. The entire statue was split, and had its interior support system replaced with steel supports, before being braised back together.
The next steps are to work on the hand and the rifle, which have caused some issues. The interior of the original rifle was wood, with a coating of “a gray colored putty… (or) epoxy such as PC-7 or JB Weld.”
“There are pieces of wood as the core of the rifle, and the gray putty has been formed over the wood to shape the rifle,” conservator Thomas Podnar wrote.
Podnar said the problem with this is that the wood absorbs water. In the winter that water freezes and expands. Then, in the summer, the wet wood begins to rot – weakening the structure. Because the rifle is not made of metal the conservators cannot make a metal repair. Instead they have recommended rebuilding the rifle with a stainless steel interior support, as already planned, and to then fill the missing areas “with DEVCON Steel Filled Epoxy.”
Once the rifle and hand are reattached, repairs will be mostly complete. The next step, then, is to place it on a block in a new location where it is more accessible and the associated plaques bearing the names of Carter County WWI veterans can also be displayed.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com
