Issue 42 summer 24 web - Flipbook - Page 62
Helena asked Frank to ‘first cast’ and then add in the fine
detail by hand before recasting to prepare masters for
mould making.
Frank said: “We spent a week in Pickering with Helena
reproducing 450ft of ‘straights’ and 12 of the corner
designs on site. Then we re-instated the Lincrusta borders
to the clerestory ceilings. Nearby on the North Yorkshire
Moors Railway, Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell had been
filming with the Mission Impossible team for ‘Dead
Reckoning: Part One’.
He added: “Our mission threw up its own challenges. The
curved roof proved difficult when installing the border,
despite using pieces fresh out of the mould. However, the
expert LNERCA workshop engineers quickly produced
their wooden template, which we reversed to lay our
mould on to successfully cast the curved sections needed.”
Car 189 is slowly returning to its 1909 condition, and the
painstaking attention to detail continues.
“I’ve always been fascinated by fine details” said Frank,
who has been in business for 34 years in June, “I've been
privileged to work on some really interesting properties
across the North West and I still love the feeling I get from
restoring something back to former glory”.
Above opposite, Victorian dado replication
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Conservation & Heritage Journal
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