Do some of you suffer the same level of “local popularity” as me? Whenever anyone on my stretch of country road has a particularly odd mechanical predicament, they always seem to end up darkening my shop door! The women are more devious, they usually present their problems to my wife who invariably responds with; “I know a guy that can help with that”!
The most recent is a lady who fortunately is incredibly pleasant and equally attractive. She and her husband have the “long two hundred” acres behind our place. Our trails are interconnected and we walk there almost every day. They breed Scottish Hyland cattle and graze them in one of our pastures, most summers. Bottom line, I can’t say “NO” when they reach out……
“Mercury” is about 2.5’ tall. From what I can tell, he’s older than me and was originally cast in five major section. Torso, head, arms and legs. Added to that are a few small wings on his head and feet, and whatever he’s holding in one hand. The leg he stands on has a pipe inserted, that slips over a large rod, in a concrete pot, buried in the lady’s front garden.
I’m guessing (heated some shavings and broken bits with a torch) he’s cast of some weird alloy that’s a mix of lead and who knows what. There are slugs of the same material cast into the ends of each joint and he appears to have been “welded” together by pouring molten material over the joints and smearing them into shape. Much the same way plumbers would “wipe” a lead pipe joint, +75 years ago.
Time and weather have been brutal to this lovely piece. Moisture got into the joints and started splitting them apart, when it froze. Last summer, one arm started to droop and them fell off. When my neighbour tried to lift him off his post (he weighs at least 60 lbs.) the head mysteriously popped off too!
He’s been sitting on my centre bench for months and Spring is coming. I’ve tried heating and applying solder, but the material is so old and dried out that it just falls away….. Yesterday I finally got into it. Was able to drill and tap the lead slug in the neck and screw in a 7/16” bolt. Cleaned it all really well. Brewed up a batch of JB Weld, smeared the threads, packed the hole and threaded it in place. Picked up a small bag of “FAST SET-high strength mortar” used for vertical and overhead repairs. Mixed up a fairly dry batch and packed Mercury’s head full of it. Smeared some around the exposed neck base and then jammed his head in place. Wiped and cleaned up what oozed out and hoped for the best!
Went down to the shop this morning and damned if the head isn’t stuck on rock solid! That made me very happyish. Cleaned up the ragged joint and them smoothed in a nice coat of JB Weld around the “seam”. The colour match is excellent and I’ll knock the shine off with some coarse sand paper when it’s all really dry. Tackling the arm the same way. When it’s done, I’ll probably give the whole thing a few coats of a satin finish urethane, so it lasts longer than me…….. All this for a nice bottle of wine, and a clear bench.
Sometimes I wish I was the “village idiot”!
