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My interest in historic preservation and restoration began in the 1960s as a schoolboy at Deerfield Academy in north western Massachusetts. The many old buildings along the Street were endlessly fascinating to me. Eventually I took up preservation work as a profession. Along the way I have found time to study preservation technology not only during my doctoral program at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, but also in the course of several large projects. I lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, from September 2000 to May 2001 working on the restoration of the circa 1730 main house at Dixon on the Mattaponi River in King and Queen County. This provided me the opportunity to use the Swem Library at the College of William and Mary, where there is an abundance of literature and technical information about the history and tradition of brick making and brick masonry in Virginia, and also at the private library of Historic Williamsburg, Inc., where I also found much to study. I went directly from this project to a large residential restoration project on Q Street in the Georgetown district of Washington DC. Using the buttons above you may see some images I have posted of these projects. I have also had several opportunities to participate in professional seminars offered by the manufacturers of several lines of restoration products. The first of these was in Chicago in April 2000 at the U.S. Heritage products training center where I learned about the traditional use of lime putty. In March 2001 I attended a seminar in Philadelphia offered by Edison Coatings, Inc. demonstrating their line of preservation products for brick and stone. In July 2001 I attended a seminar in the use of the Jahn products offered by Cathedral Stone in Hanover, Maryland. Although I am not an advocate of the use of synthetic products, I attended these last two seminars to see if anything they offered might suit the particular needs of my clients. In most cases I recommend only the use of traditional materials and methods on historic buildings. For this reason I am most inclined to use lime putty both for repairs of brick and stone using traditional methods and for repointing.
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