The first wing mold is done and a test plaster cast made and fitted to the test plaster body.
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Winged griffin, after Hecla Iron Works
The first half of the first mold is done, to-morrow the 2nd half will be done and the work makes some more progress. The Hecla Iron Works of Brooklyn NY was named after Mount Hecla, an active volcano in Iceland. A fitting name for a design studio and foundry established by two Scandinavians: Danish-born Niels Poulson and his Norwegian partner, Charles Eger. The two men came to the United States at different times in the 1860s, and founded their business in a small office in Williamsburg in 1876, a boom time for building in Brooklyn and New York City. Both men had backgrounds as mason-journeymen, and Poulson had been an…
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Winged griffin
I decided to finally make the 3 molds needed to make this griffin newel post. I had 3 of them in my collection, cast-iron from the 1870s they were used as newel posts on the stoops of buildings in NYC. Many of them had their wings broken off, many probably deliberately by building supers to remove the fairly sharp pointed wings to avoid injuries or tearing of ladies dresses. They were made by Heckla Iron works in Brooklyn. The originals were cast-iron, a material that would cost hundreds of dollars just for the castings, so casting them in metal is not likely, casting them in any kind of plaster, cast…