St. Mary's Cathedral - BCM Steeplejacks

home	about bcm	case studies	services	contact	sitemap

St. Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh Lime pointing (Click on text or images for a larger picture)
The masons from St. Mary's Cathedral Workshops were carrying out routine maintenance on the south east steeple when they noticed that there were a lot of open beds and joints on the spire above. Their scaffold reached no higher than the base of the spire, so we were called in to do the required lime pointing.
Our first task was to ladder the spire and carry out a photographic inspection to ascertain how much pointing was necessary. As you can see the not all the beds and joints are wide open, but there are enough to make pointing necessary.
This picture was taken near the head of the spire. Once again there are some beds and joints that are open to the weather, and others that are sealed. After discussion between us, the architect, and the masons at St. Mary's Cathedral Worskhops, it was agreed that the best solution was to patch point the spire (only fill the joints that were open).
The only other problem we found on the spire was the existence of three old dog pins (old fashioned steeplejack access fixings). These should be removed at the end of a job, but these had been left. They would eventually have rusted and cracked the masonry (metal expands as it rusts - it is know as rust jacking). This one is right at the head of the spire, where it could have done significant damage.
Pointing the spire from a bosuns chair.