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| Painstaking Restoration At Old Overton Gym | |||
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| By Vernon Robison Moapa Valley Progress Published October 15, 2008 The Old Overton Gym is in its final weeks of a significant restoration project. In recent weeks, two specialists, Matthew Hansen and Mike Waechter from G.G. Construction Company of Las Vegas, have been repairing and restoring the masonry on the outside of the historic building. This project, funded by a $40,000 grant from the State Historic Preservation Office, is part of the ongoing effort to bring the old building back to its original splendor. Work on the project began on August 19 and is expected to be completed by the end of this month. |
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The first task of the job was graffiti removal. The brick facade on the outside of the building had been repeatedly marred with spray paint and paintballs. In a good-intentioned attempt to clean it up, some of that grafitti had simply been painted over with a latex paint. In those cases, the cover paint had to first be removed and then the old graffiti had to be cleaned off of the brick. The next phase of the project was to do repair work to the masonry itself. The building was built nearly seventy years ago by the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC). The materials used in the walls were all from that period. But recent repair workers had attempted to patched up the walls replacing old mortar with a modern ready-mix mortar. This gave a quick repair to the facade. Over time, though, this has presented some problems. "The new mortar is stronger than the old mortar and the old bricks," said Matthew Hansen, one of the workers. As times goes by, the building settles, Hansen explained. The old materials settle differently than the stronger, new mortar. This causes stress and strain on the older materials. Finally significant damage occurs to the facade. "It just gets worse and worse as time goes on," Hansen said. And so, Hansen and Waechter faced a real challenge in this project. Their task was to repair the masonry by re-creating a close match to the 70-year old mortar. The men spent nearly a month developing a recipe for the historic mortar using local materials. It was an elusive goal. The old mortar was not the smooth gray cement that is commonly in use today. Rather it was rougher containing a fine aggregrate gravel. A healthy amount of the trademark Moapa red sand also gave the old mortar a distinctive color. The men first found an old gravel pit in the community that had an agregrate that looked similar to what was used in the old mortar. "Who knows, it might have even been the same pit the original builders used," said Hansen. They also got some local red sand. Then they went to work experimenting on different mixtures. It took a good deal of time, but they finally came up with a recipe that closely resembled the old mortar. But to make things even more difficult, all of the mortar used to originally build the structure was not the same. "The mortar was all hand mixed as needed during construction," said workman, Mike Waechter. "So the exact recipe seems to have varied from day to day depending on who was mixing it that day." This made it hard for the two men to tell if they had the perfect match of color and consistency. Once the mortar is applied, it takes about a week for it to dry fully. While its drying, its impossible to tell if you have a full color match with the surrounding masonry. "We just have to wait and see," Waechter said. "If it doesn't match, then we have to grind it out and start again. That has added to the time the project has taken." The men actually ended up with two slightly different mixtures of mortar to match different parts of the building. For more subtle color matching, they have a dye that can be added as needed by degrees to the mixture. Hansen and Waechter have a considerable amount of masonry work experience between them. Even so, this project was something out of the ordinary. Their usual job is to do repair work to damaged masonry work. In most of this work, however, modern materials are available to make the damaged areas look new. Historic restoration is a different thing altogether, they said. "It has been very educational to say the least," Hansen said. Old Overton Gym Board member, Chris Green, is pleased with the work as it has progressed. "It is so exciting to see the change that has taken place," Green said. "It has been such a gradual process that it is hard to remember what it looked like just two months ago and recognize how much better it looks today. But when you look at photos and compare it is truly like night and day." The project is expected to be completed just in time for the Old Fashioned Good Time event at the Old Overton Gym planned for Saturday evening November 1 from 5-8 pm. This fundraising/membership kickoff to the coming year will be open to the community. "Those attending can count on having a fun trip down memory lane," said Green. "We are going to have a lot of activities reminiscent of days gone by in the Gym." These will include bake sale, popcorn, carnival booths, and a long missed appearance of the original Pocket Lady. |
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