Izabella Nuckles, UT Austin and Franscisco Uviña-Contreras UNM
GUADALUPE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK BUTTERFIELD STAGE AT PINERS TREATMENT REPORT Submitted By: Prakriti Bhandari Supervised By:
This report is a prepared by Prakriti Bhandari as a part of an lab methods for the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Historic Preservation Degree at the University of Texas at Austin. Dec 2022
Contents
SUMMARY 1
CHAPTER I- INTRODUCTION 2
CHAPTER II - DESCRIPTION OF A BUILDING 3
CHAPTER III-PRESENT CONDITION 4
CHAPTER III-PRESENT CONDITION 5
CHAPTER IV- PREPARATION OF MORTAR 6
CHAPTER V- TEST 7
CHAPTER V- MORTAR PREPARATION AND APPLICATION 8
CHAPTER V- RECOMMENDATION 9
Pinery as in 1858 | National register of historic places property photographic form (Register and Historic, 1974)
SUMMARY
This report includes the process of treating the stone masonary wall with loose mortar joints. It includes making of the mud mortar , ways to test them and make an appropriate mortar mix for repointing the masonry.
It also includes the thorough process of the explanation of the mortar making process, testing process and ways of repointing in the ruin walls.
1 Treatment Report
- Butterfield Stage at Piners
CHAPTER I- INTRODUCTION
CLIENT: Guadalupe National Park
LOCATION: 400 Pine Cyn, Salt Flat, TX 79847
SUBJECT BUILDING: Pinery or Pine Spring Stage Stand
Guadalupe national park contacted the University of Texas at Austin and the University of New Mexico to repair and restore the ranch house, including the latex paint removal from the exterior native stone wall. Francisco Uviña-Contreras and Izabella Nuckles professors at both universities with a graduate student at the University of New Mexico and the university of Texas at Austin performed the treatment of the building in October 13-14th of 2022 on the ruins of Pinery butterfield stage. It was a clear sky and 65-75 F while treatment was being performed.
Land/Lease Mapping Viewer
Land/Lease Mapping Viewer
Report - Butterfield Stage at Piners
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Treatment
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Land/Lease Mapping Viewer Figure: Location map of the Ranch House
CHAPTER II - DESCRIPTION OF A BUILDING
Pinery or Pine Spring Stage Stand
It was built in 1858 as a station on the Butterfield Overland Mail Route St. Louis to San Francsico. This space was abandoned when the line was shifted to the Davis Mountain Route in 1859 (Register and Historic, 1974).
Pinery station is in the state of ruins as of today is the remain of the one of the rock built stations along the pinery route.
The northwest wall of the main enclosure is the only standing part of the overall station. The wall is braced with timber.
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Treatment Report - Butterfield Stage at Piners
Figure: Pinery Landmark stone erected by State of Texas
Figure: Pinery ruin view with scaffolding support
CHAPTER III-PRESENT CONDITION
The present condition of the pinery ruin wall was delicate, previous mortar repointing has all fall off and the top stack of the stone’s mortar has also been washed away. It was braced from one side with the help of timber. This ruin was in a dire need of the treatment.The equipments and materials used for the treatment of the masonry are:
• Sieve
• Shovel
• Wheelbarrow
• Plastic tub to make mortar
• Dirt (earth) Local
• Lime NHL
• Sand (Coarse) brownish pink
• Water
• Trowel
• Hand gloves
• PPE (Glasses)
• Water sprayer
• trowel
Figure: seiving the local earth for the preparation of mortar
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Treatment Report - Butterfield Stage at Piners
Figure: Damaged mortar joints which needs to be treated
CHAPTER III-PRESENT CONDITION
For the treatement of the ruin walls following process were taken:
- Preparations
- Identifying proper mix for the mortar
- Preparation of the surface
- Treatment Process
Preparation: Tests
First the mortar of different consisstency is prepared and tested using the break test and ball test. which is discussed further in section
After that proper mortar mix is identified then, the surface of the repointing is prepared. For preparing the surface, using a trowel, all the loose mortar has to be removed properly and the surface should be wet using water sprayer.
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Treatment Report - Butterfield Stage at Piners
Figure: Damaged mortar joints which needs to be treated
Figure: Pinery ruin’s only standing wall
CHAPTER IV- PREPARATION OF MORTAR
First, local mud, sand were taken to prepare the mortar of various proportion. The process of making mud mortar is visually explained below. First the material are placed in a correct proportion on a plastic tub and dry mix of all the elements are done, Then water is added to gain the workable consistency. After the mortar is prepared. Break test and Ball test were done to identify the best mix proportion for the repointing of the wall. All various proportion mix samples were prepared a day before the actual repointing day.
STEP
STEP
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Treatment
Report - Butterfield Stage at Piners
STEP 1: Materials mud and water.
2: Mixing the mud and sand in a plastic tub.
3: Measuring the quantity as per the proportions.
STEP 4: Dry mixing all the components in a tub
STEP 5: Mixing water in the mix for getting workable consistency
STEP 6: Roll mortar on paper for break test
STEP 7: Ball test
STEP 8: Preparing the surface
STEP 9: Repointed walls
STEP 1:
Testing mortar samples with different proportions.
1. Break test
In this test, a various proportion mortar were rolled and checked the elasticity present in a mortar. First, a mortar was rolled in hand and then by using a paper mortar is rolled more and then kept on the edge of a desk or any walls then slowly paper is moved making a rolled mortar to be in a air on it’s own and letting it break. Then repeating the same process and obtaining the break lengths. If the break length are same then the mortar has enough plasticity to hold.
2. Ball test
Take a handful of the soil prepared and form a ball of about 80mm diameter.
Keep the ball in the sun for drying when dried, examine the ball for loss of shape and surface cracks, if any.
If the ball prepared has deformed on drying and crumbles easily when pressed lightly, it may be inferred that sand content is excessive.
If the ball is hard but shows cracks on the surface, then the sand content is insufficient. After this test, the proportion of the mortar was set to 7 part of mud to 3 part of sand as a standard for repointing.
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Report - Butterfield Stage at Piners
CHAPTER
V-
TEST
Figure: different proportion mix of the mortar balls used for testing
CHAPTER
MORTAR PREPARATION AND APPLICATION
Mixing of Mortar:
First the sieved dirt and sand are mix dry in a proportion of 7 to 3. Then a small amount of NHL lime was mixed until the white color completely vanished from the mix. Then, water was added with a workable consistency. Note that mortar should not be like a slurry and should not be too dry.
Applying mortar:
First, removing the loose mortar from the wall using the chisel, trowel. Any kinds of plants or very loose stone was also removed to fix them. Then, once the loose mortar is all removed the surface was wet using the sprayer.
After that, prepared mud mortar was taken on a hand and a forced throw of the mortar was done on the wall so that it fills the gap. The forced throw was done because it helps a better sticking of the mortar on the exiting wall than just pushing the mortar on the gap using trowel.
Then, removing the surplus mortar from the joint. Sometimes if the joint was too big, then small fitting size of stone was pushed through the mortar until it seems stable.
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Treatment Report - Butterfield Stage at Piners
V-
Figure: Repointing
Figure: Repointing surface preparation
CHAPTER V- RECOMMENDATION
The repointing should be maintained and treated regularly.It needs to be properly checked and the same mix of 7:3 can be used ro if needs to be repointed again in near future. The earth and the stone used for the repointing should be taken from the local area to match the existing ruin’s character.
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Treatment Report - Butterfield Stage at Piners
Figure: Repointed surface
References:
Register, N. and Historic, O. F. (1974) ‘Butterfield Stafee Station’, 306.
