Fox & Hounds Pub & Restaurant Construction: Part 4

On our first day of sculpting for the Fox & Hounds Pub project, we focused on the trees n the entryway. First, we troweled on a coat of fiberglass reinforced concrete — about 1" thick. (The mud was applied even thicker in key areas to allow various details to be carved in.)

Then the mud was allowed to set up until it was good and firm before we started sculpting.

Using a variety of tools — including pointing trowels and folded up scraps of expanded metal lath — each detail was painstakingly sculpted into the wet cement. We had to work quickl (at the same pace as the concrete was applied) in order to maintain a consistent texture from tree to tree.

We finished the two trees in just under eight hours. Next week we'll look at, how we carved the faux brick and stone walls — see you then.

Fox & Hounds Pub & Restaurant Construction: Part 3

A number of trees line the Fox & Hounds Pub entranceway. Last week we noted that these “trees” consisted of a welded steel armature.

The next stage was to attach expanded metal lath to these frames. The lath is tied to the pencil rod with rebar tie wire using a pair of side cutters.

At the same time, we stapled the lath onto the plywood wood walls.

Once the lath was secured we were ready for the concrete sculpting process and we will take a look at that step next week.

Fox & Hounds Pub & Restaurant Construction: Part 2

The Fox & Hounds entrance hallway features several trees. Typically, we weld steel armatures for sculptures like these. Since these trees were built in place we started by screwing some heavy duty lag bolts into the walls to act as anchor points for a pencil rod frame.

Since space was at a premium, we kept the depth of these trees to a minimum.

We also built a branch to hold up the hostess’ station. We had originally designed it to sit on the floor but opted to mount it to the wall instead. The bird's nest remains, but we moved the fox in the knothole to one of the entrance trees. We built this piece in our shop from square tubing and pencil rod. We bolted the frame to the wall onto some backing the carpenters had put in place for us.

The next step was to attach expanded metal lath to these pencil rod frames and we will take a look at that process next week.