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Contributed Photo
Continental Cast Stone worker Dennis Miley smooths cement in the rubber mold used to make one-fourth of the medallion for the outside of the Dole Institute. The medallion is 14 feet in diameter and features the Kansas Governor's seal.
DOLE INSTITUTE
Kansas company, graduates complete stone medallion
By Ehren Meditz
emeditz@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
It began in one KU graduate's backyard. Now, it graces the front of the new Dole Institute of Politics.
The stone medallion, 14 feet in diameter and located on the upper-left corner of the Institute, was the product of only six men, who encountered numerous difficulties throughout the six-month production.
"Whenever you're doing a 14-foot medallion, there's nothing simple about it," said Pat Aistrup, who worked with Mike Wallace in sculpting the medallion for the Shawnee-based company Continental Cast Stone. Both men graduated from the University in the early '80s.
The medallion is the Kansas governor's seal. The medallion, along with lettering on the building, was funded by $60,000 worth of private donations. Although the graduates had experience sculpting medallions, the Institute medallion was nearly triple the size of their largest project.
Aistrup and Wallace carved the medallion in wood last winter in an incomplete studio in Aistrup's backyard, which was not equipped with electricity or heat. Aistrup had to heat the studio with propane.
"Consequently, you're either way too hot and your clothes are ready to burn off or your toes are freezing and turning blue," he said.
After Aistrup and Wallace completed the carving, other workers at the company created the rope around the medallion with rubber. High-density Styrofoam was used for the lettering.
But the Institute didn't pay for a medallion made out of wood, rubber and Styrofoam.
The hybrid model is called a "positive," which is used to make a rubber mold. Later, workers pour concrete into the mold to make the final stone product.
Because of the sheer size of the medallion, the positive was cut into four pieces that could be pieced together later.
Carl McMackin, plant manager for the company, said that workers did a total of 12 concrete pours for only four pieces of stone.
In pouring the concrete, tiny air bubbles were trapped under the mixture, warping the ornate designs. Workers then used a machine to vibrate the concrete into all the cracks, but that gave the stone a distorted, blurry look.
"Normally, it should only take a couple of days." McMackin said.
Eventually, McMackin and his workers hashed out a workable plan. They added more water to the concrete before pouring it and used smaller vibrations. McMackin said he expected the project to be tough, but he thought the final price tag was a little low.
"We probably would've bid it higher," McMackin said.
— Edited by Maggie Newcomer