We received a call from a local college about a marble railing that was original to one of their buildings built in 1833. The old seam material was failing over time, causing an unstable and unsafe railing in a busy area of the building. After visiting the site, we determined the best way to resolve the issue would be to remove and replace all of the seam material for the purpose of repairing the structural integrity of the railing system. Below are the steps our crew took to stabilize the marble railing in this historical educational building.
1) Remove all old, broken and loose seam material between the sections of the marble handrail, the bottom of every baluster where they meet the step, the top of the balusters where they meet the handrail, and the main connection of the central post.
2) In some places, a metal reinforcing pin was fabricated to replace the original broken pins that are used to provide additional structural integrity for the handrail.
3) Once the railing was structurally sound, all seams along the handrail were filled with high-strength color-matched epoxy adhesive, and each of the balusters was caulked with a tinted caulking which closely matched the colored fill material.
The final product was a secure marble railing that most likely exceeded the strength of its original design due to superior seaming adhesives used in the industry today!
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