Ford Piquette Avenue Plant, Detroit
Retrofit Team
WINDOW TEAM: Volunteers led by Art Pope, a former Ford Motor Co. engineer
Materials
Guardian Industries Corp. recently completed a long-term donation of glass to help the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant restore its windows.
The last shipment of glass from Guardian’s Carleton, Mich., float glass plant will help workers finish 355 windows in the 3-story National Historic Landmark, all of which needed critical repair and restoration. The relationship between Guardian and the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant began in 2011 after a Guardian employee attended an event at the site and saw an opportunity to help.
The Window Team is divided into a Sash Team, Frame Team and Carpentry Team. The teams are following the Washington, D.C.-based National Park Service Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties.
“We’re 85 percent finished. We’re able to do about 30 windows per season,” explains Art Pope, a former engineer with Ford Motor Co., who manages the Window Team. “It takes six weeks of Mondays from the time we take the sash out of frame and start the process to fully restoring the sash and the frame and installing the glass.”
The Sash Team scrapes and removes the paint, putty and glass; applies a two-part epoxy on porous areas where there are cracks; and sands, primes and applies two coats of paint.
The Frame Team works mostly outside on a lift to scrape the frame and apply that same two-part epoxy. After the epoxy dries, they, too, sand, prime and apply two coats of paint.
If the wood has deteriorated too much on the 100-plus-year-old frames, the Carpentry Team duplicates any parts needed. They also make transom windows and have built doors and sliding windows at the visitor service desk. Another significant contribution by the Carpentry Team was to repair the fire escape on the east side of the building. In the original building design, people would have exited out the window to the fire escape. Current fire code required the renovated building to replace the window with doors. Therefore, the Carpentry Team designed doors that look like windows, complete with Guardian Glass.
The three teams are composed of 22 people. About 15 to 18 volunteers work every Monday—April 1 through the week of Thanksgiving. The majority of workers are Ford retirees, schoolteachers and General Motors retirees.
“We work 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with a break at 10 a.m. for coffee and doughnuts and to solve the world’s problems,” Pope explains. “We also have an annual breakfast the first Monday of December, when we award the MVP of the year. There is a lot of good camaraderie.
“Guardian has given us plenty of glass,” he continues. “Guardian also invited us to Carleton to see how glass is made. We were very impressed with that.”
“To me, what is remarkable about the Window Team is that they built their own factory in the plant on the second floor,” says Nancy Darga, executive director of the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant. “They developed a window manual. They experiment with wood fungicide and report back the results to Sherwin-Williams. Our success in making this National Historic Landmark weathertight is a result of the dedication of these men and women, who were recognized by the MotorCities National Heritage Area with the 2015 Award of Excellence in the preservation category.”
GLASS MANUFACTURER: Guardian Industries
The Retrofit
The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant is the first building built and owned by Ford Motor Co. Eight different automobile models were produced between 1904 and 1910, culminating with the world-changing Model T. The first 12,000 Model T’s were built at the Piquette plant.
The semi-abandoned building was purchased in 2000 by the Model T Automotive Heritage Complex, a non-profit corporation dedicated to the preservation of the Piquette Plant. Now a National Historic Landmark, the plant has become a major tourist attraction, welcoming thousands of visitors annually.
PHOTO: GUARDIAN INDUSTRIES