Roof Finials

Western EcoSystems Technology, a company out of Wyoming, decided to do a little remodeling on the outside of their building located in downtown Laramie Wyoming. The building is at least one hundred years old, if not a bit more. The decorative columns on the outside of the two story building needed to be repaired and repainted. Sheet metal cone shaped finials sat on top of each column and had fallen in disrepair over the years.
The metal finials had been soldered and over time it had oxidized and broken down the solder joint.
The first step in building duplicate roof finials was to remove a piece out of the old metal finial to use as a pattern for the new finials. Tom then took eighteen gauge cold rolled steel and had a sheet metal shop blank out eight square pieces per new finial. Then Tom took a hand sheer to form two radius on each metal piece to form the petal like shape.
Tom ordered hollow steel balls through Orleans Ornamental for the top of each finial. After welding the finials using a wire feed welder, Tom ground off each face of the octagon with a belt grinder to get the corners square and lined up. Then he took a flap wheel and rounded each corner just a little bit and blended in the welds on the balls.
The new finials fit on top of the new columns to give the old building a fresh look.
Here are photos of the final project on the Midwest Building in downtown Laramie.