Herb Gabriel: High-altitude painter
1 of 3Paint touch-up
“Touching up areas with the most severe corrosion from constant moisture
and salt is our primary maintenance job on the bridge. The primer we use
depends on where the metal is located and how much sun and salt it gets.
We use moisture-cured urethanes and inorganic zinc primers mostly.”
2 of 3Safety first
You have to be tied off at all times. Hard
hats, safety harnesses, gloves and safety
glasses are mandatory. Safety is your main
focus and painting comes after that.
3 of 3Urethane paint
The Golden Gate Bridge gets
coated with urethane paint
because urethane offers
super adhesion and stands
up to harsh weather. If you'd
like that durability on your
home, ask about urethane
paint at your local paint store
(it may be a special order
item). One urethane-fortified
paint that's available nationwide
is Pittsburgh Paints'
Manor Hall Exterior paint.
The Golden Gate Bridge, one of the world’s toughest
painting projects, will celebrate its 75th birthday
next year. A rugged group of ironworkers
and painters repairs and paints the bridge’s steel
while suspended high above the Golden Gate
Strait, battling high winds, salty air and dense
fog. Herb Gabriel has been part of this elite group
for 30 years. He started as a lane worker setting up
cones down on the highway, and now he’s a chief
bridge painter running a crew of seven men.
Best part of his job: There’s no contest: “The
view. It’s just spectacular. Not a lot of people get
to climb up on the bridge, and for me it’s always
felt like a privilege.”
On working up high: “If you’re afraid of heights,
you shouldn’t be working up here. But once
you’re up here, all the fear leaves your body and
you feel lucky to be one of the chosen few who
get to work up on the bridge.”
Toughest part of the job: “The weather is the
big unknown.
From one hour
to the next,
the weather
really changes.
Sometimes
it’s so windy
you can’t even
walk across
the bridge. On
those days, we
paint inside the
honeycomb-shaped
shell.”
Herb's Painting Pointers
Prep work: “It’s the hardest part of any paint job. Without good prep, your paint job will look good for all of six months. No one likes to do the scraping, sandblasting or caulking, but it’s the most important part of painting.”
Painting metal: “Match your metal to the primer. Every metal requires a different kind
of primer and final coat. You need to etch aluminum and seal bare steel before painting.
If you use the wrong primer or don’t prep it properly, it’ll look good for six months
and then it will fail.”
DIY tip: Herb uses chemical etchers to prep the metal for painting the Golden Gate
Bridge. You can achieve similar results on your metal at home by wiping it down with
distilled white vinegar (and rinsing it well) before priming.
Paintbrushes: “We use some special gooseneck angle brushes to reach behind rivets and bolts. But we also use high-quality regular brushes like you can get at any home center. Cheap brushes won’t hold up, on the bridge or your house. Take your painting seriously so you don’t have to redo it anytime soon.”
Painting process: “There are permanent air lines, water lines and electrical lines set up
on the bridge, and much of the work up high is done using pneumatic paint sprayers. If
we’re working down closer to the road, we use brushes and rollers so we don’t get paint
on the cars.”
Eric Mortenson: The Da Vinci of decks
1 of 3Eric Mortenson
Eric Mortenson was named a Twin Cities Best Contractor for the third year in a row.
2 of 3Three-season porch
Mortenson specializes in creating comfortable, welcoming spaces that will hold up to decades of harsh Minnesota weather.
3 of 3Deck stairs
Cedar combined with composite decking creates decks that are durable, attractive and structurally strong.
For the third year in a row, Eric Mortenson has been named
a Twin Cities Best Contractor by Angie’s List, the largest
home improvement review service in the United States
(angieslist.com). Winners are in the top 1 percent of U.S.
contractors of the 18,000 eligible for the award. Mortenson
specializes in high-end decks and three-season porches,
and his clients call him meticulous, driven and hard-working.
According to one satisfied client, “The building inspector
said he seldom sees such craftsmanship and quality
anymore.”
Construction philosophy: “I build everything as if I were
building it for myself. When your work becomes art, and
you’re really focusing on quality and beauty, the rest of it
takes care of itself.”
On materials: “It used to be I built 20 percent composite
and 80 percent wood. In the last three years, it’s changed
completely and 80 percent are going with composite. I like
to use composites on the horizontal surfaces and cedar for
the railing. Cedar is beautiful, it’s stronger than a composite
rail, and having a little bit of wood in there gives the overall
deck a less sterile feeling.”
Determining a successful project: “I always try to do something
on every job that the client didn’t expect. It really
doesn’t take that much longer to do something that’s got
well-thought-out, elegant details in it.”
What experience has taught him: “You need to have a
complete vision and see the finished product before you
start. The magic is in the details. You need to know how
you’re going to finish off that corner, how that border is
going to work, and how you’re going to tie it to the house
before you even buy the materials. When I was younger, I
thought I could figure
it out as I went, but that
doesn’t work well.”
Battery-powered palm nailer
Eric's Deck Building Secrets
- “Sikkens Log & Siding is my favorite
stain for any exterior wood vertical surface
like garage doors, deck rails, etc.
It’s a two-coat system that costs about
$80 a gallon. It’s expensive, but well
worth it. It’s stunning and looks like
an interior surface, and it’ll hold up for
five or more years in between coats.”
- How to dig footings fast: “Rent a Toro Dingo auger for
a half day. They rent them all over the
U.S., they work in all sorts of rough soils, and they
make an awful job a lot easier.”
- “For putting in joist hanger nails, a palm nailer is a
huge time-saver. My first choice is a pneumatic air
nailer because it makes the process fast
and it’s very powerful. But my Milwaukee battery-powered
palm nailer can also come in really
handy, especially in tight spots and awkward positions
where dragging around an air hose is inconvenient.”
Chedric B. Jordan: Presidential plumber
1 of 1Chedric B. Jordan
Chedric B. Jordan was a top plumber in the Marines for eight years, and now works in Alaska.
Chedric B. Jordan spent eight years as a Navy
Seabee (the construction force of the Navy and
the Marines). He worked as the President’s plumber
at Camp David from 2000 to 2003 and served in
Okinawa and Iraq. During his second deployment
in Iraq, he was shot while on duty with the
Marines. He is currently working as a civilian
plumber and HVAC technician at Fort Greeley,
Alaska.
On working at Camp David: “Camp David is basically the president’s resort,
and you end up rubbing elbows with the President and dignitaries from all
over the world. You have to do your job, but you also have to provide polished
service and be very well mannered. No rough and tumble stuff allowed.”
The worst moment on the job: “In Iraq, I had to crawl underneath a chow hall
and into a grease trap. It was pretty nasty. I smelled bad for three weeks no
matter how many showers I took.”
Advice for DIYers during a plumbing emergency: “A leak often causes people to
hit panic mode and they don’t stop to think about why something is happening.
It might be as simple as shutting off a valve right in front of you. Examine
the simplest fixes first and work your way up to the most difficult.”
DIY smarts: “Take a moment to get to know your plumbing and heating systems.
Almost like a fire drill. Find valves and shut them off and see what it
affects. When a problem happens, you’ll
have a better idea of what to do. It doesn’t
hurt to label things either.”
PEX cinch clamp fastening tool and cinch rings
General
Wire ATC12
AutoCut
Pipe cutter
Chedric's Secret Weapons
- “PEX is great for homeowners because it’s widely
available, easy to use and you can fix it yourself.
Not every system for connecting PEX
to fittings is available everywhere. But if
you have a choice between the cinch
system (with stainless steel cinch
rings) and the crimp system
(with copper crimp rings) I’d
go with the cinch system. The
tool is smaller and the
same tool can handle four different
ring sizes (3/8 to 1 inch).”
- “This pipe cutter
is a lot quicker than the standard
‘C-clamp’ style. You just snap it on the
pipe and twist. It also fits into tight
spots where a standard cutter won’t.”
- “The
Ridgid
Faucet and
Sink Installer is one
of my favorite tools. It’s got
all the tools you need in one
package to completely install a
new sink and faucet unit.”
Gabriele Rausse: Thomas Jefferson's garden guru
1 of 3Jefferson's garden
The gardens of Monticello are a botanic showpiece and experimental laboratory for hundreds of historic plant varieties.
2 of 3Gabriele Rausse
Gabriele Rausse is in charge of the gardens at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home and plantation in Virginia.
3 of 3Jefferson's favorites
The Obama White House kitchen garden
honors Thomas Jefferson and is planted
with many of his favorite varieties including
Prickly-Seeded spinach, Tennis Ball
lettuce and Red Calico lima beans. You
can order seeds and live
plants of these and many other unusual
plant varieties. Visit
monticello.org.
Legendary Monticello, featured on
every nickel minted since 1938, was
Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia home and
5,000-acre plantation that evolved over
40 years. Its gardens were and still are
a botanic showpiece, a source of food,
and an experimental laboratory of
plants from around the world. Since
1995, Gabriele Rausse has overseen
the propagation of hundreds of fruits,
vegetables and herbs at Monticello that
Jefferson and his contemporaries grew
during the 1800s. One of Rausse’s primary
tasks is to collect, preserve and
distribute historic plant varieties that
remain largely unknown to modern
gardeners.
Jefferson’s gardening legacy:
“Jefferson was one of the first ‘organic’
gardeners and one of the first to make
the connection between healthy soil
and healthy plants. He raised and ate
things back then that people didn’t
even consider edible during his time.
He was an incredibly adventurous
eater and he left detailed notes about
everything he ate and planted.”
Monticello’s purpose: “Sharing seeds
and plants was part of Jefferson’s mission.
We want to re-create and save
those species that he experimented
with and that have withstood the test
of time so people can grow a wider variety of things in their own gardens.”
Heirloom tomatoes
Photo courtesy of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation
Gabriele's Food For Thought
- “Grow heirloom tomato varieties like Purple Calabash,
Mortgage Lifter and German Johnson. They’re tough, disease
resistant and delicious.”
- “Fertile soil is the key to helping your plants survive a
drought, too much rain and bad storms.”
- “Every year we learn something from our mistakes that helps
us to be better gardeners the following year.”
- The connection between happiness and growing good food:
“I’m Italian, so food is important to me. A good meal makes
my day. As I said to my wife (an American), I can survive
with a sandwich, but a sandwich
doesn’t make me happy.
I think Jefferson felt like that.”
Craig Minasian: Disney's plant (and animal) wrangler
1 of 3Topiary characters
Keeping the animals happy:
"There's a lot of maintenance
on the animals that have antlers,
horns and stripes, like the
zebras. A variety of plants are
used on detail areas—palm
fiber for antlers and Spanish
moss for the zebra stripes."
2 of 3Craig Minasian
Craig Minasian is the Master Senior Topiary Engineer at Disneyland Resorts
3 of 3Tools of the trade
"My primary tools are sheep
shears (available at farm supply
stores), which can be used
one-handed and are good for
close cuts and detail work like
on the faces, and common
two-handed garden shears
for the bigger areas."
Whether you’re 6 or 60, you can’t help but
be tickled by an arborvitae elephant or a rhododendron
rabbit. In the 1960s, Walt Disney
turned the centuries-old art of topiary into an
enormously popular part of Disneyland’s big
“show.” There are now more than 100 whimsical
characters and animals sculpted out of
live plants at the Disney Resorts. The pros
who create these character topiaries need to
have extensive landscaping knowledge as
well as artistic souls. Craig Minasian has both.
With 30 years in the landscape industry, he’s
spent the last four of them as a Master Senior
Topiary Engineer at the Disneyland Resorts.
He learned his craft through Disneyland’s
formal Character Topiary Maintenance
Training and apprentice program.
A typical day starts in the dark: “We do most
of our work when guests are not around. So
we set up lights at 2 a.m. and work under the
lights until dawn. My workday is finished by
10 a.m.”
Secrets to successful topiary: “You need
patience and the ability to focus on the
whole project and not just the details in
front of you. With character topiary, you’re
trying to fill the base frame. So we’re always
looking at the holes in the figures and trying
to redirect new growth to fill the holes.
The challenge is to manage the health and
look of each plant
to keep it within the
the frame.”
Craig's Tips for the Novice "Topiary Engineer"
- Start small. Buy a prebent wire frame
at a garden center or make your own.
- Start with a vine topiary, rather than
a shrub topiary. Vines are easier
to work with and let you
practice pruning and managing
the different kinds
of plants.
- Choose plants that grow
quickly and are tolerant of many growing conditions.
Good vine topiary plants include English and Boston ivy.
- In cold climates, plant the topiary in a pot that can be moved
into the garage during the winter.
