L. William Zahner - Zinc Surfaces: A Guide to Alloys, Finishes, Fabrication, and Maintenance in Architecture and Art

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8

Zahner's Architectural Metals Series offers in-depth coverage of metals used in architecture and art today. Metals in architecture are selected for their durability, strength, and resistance to weather. The metals covered in this series are used extensively in the built environments that make up our world and are also finding appeal and fascination to the artist. These heavily illustrated guides offer comprehensive coverage of how each metal is used in creating surfaces for building exteriors, interiors, and art sculpture. This series provides architects, metal fabricators and developers, design professionals, and students in architecture and design programs with a logical framework for the selection and use of metallic building materials. Forthcoming books in Zahner's Architectural Metals Series will include Copper, Brass, and Bronze; Steel; and Zinc surfaces.

Titles in Zahner's Architectural Metals Series include:

• Stainless Steel Surfaces: A Guide to Alloys, Finishes, Fabrication, and Maintenance in Architecture and Art
• Aluminum Surfaces: A Guide to Alloys, Finishes, Fabrication, and Maintenance in Architecture and Art
• Copper, Brass, and Bronze Surfaces: A Guide to Alloys, Finishes, Fabrication, and Maintenance in Architecture and Art
• Steel Surfaces: A Guide to Alloys, Finishes, Fabrication, and Maintenance in Architecture and Art
• Zinc Surfaces: A Guide to Alloys, Finishes, Fabrication, and Maintenance in Architecture and Art

L. William Zahner

Copyright 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Zahner, L. William, author. | John Wiley & Sons, publisher.

Title: Zinc surfaces: a guide to alloys, finishes, fabrication, and maintenance in architecture and art / L. William Zahner.

Other titles: Zahner's architectural metals series

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2021] | Series: Zahner's Architectural Metals Series

Identifiers: LCCN 2021003278 (print) | LCCN 2021003279 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119541615 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119541639 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119541592 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: ZincSurfaces. | ZincFinishing. | Zinc coatings. | Architectural metal-work. | Art metal-work.

Classification: LCC TS640 .Z34 2021 (print) | LCC TS640 (ebook) | DDC 661/.0661dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021003278

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021003279

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Images: (Main) Steven Holl Architects', Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA), Virginia Commonwealth University, photographed by Iwan Bann, c. 2017. (Border) Pattern on zinc plates somnuk / Getty Images

This book is dedicated to my good friend Verne Christensen.

(a designer who proved Alessandro Volta's theory when we built a beautiful curved zinc roof below his copper gutters)

An expert is an ordinary man who- when he is not home gives advice.

Oscar Wilde

Zinc is the mysterious metal used in art and architecture.

In the United States, it is a paradox. On the one hand, it is considered an Old World metal, used for centuries across Europe. Paris is defined by the roofs of zinc that blanket the city. Yet it is relatively new to North American architecture.

As a metal of art casting or fenestration, little was known until the early 1990s. Sure, we knew of the process of dipping steel in a molten jacket of zinc. Hot-dipped galvanized, a strange fondue for metal, is a process that is well known, but not always understood.

The leading zinc mines that supplied the world were once in the middle of the United States, a region with the town of Joplin, Missouri, as the center. Most zinc mining has ended in the area, but in the late 1800s and early 1900s this was the epicenter of zinc. Millionaires were made by the dozens as the area was tunneled out like a giant anthill.

In North America, the sheet metal industry, art casting industry, and design community knew little about zinc. Publications and training documents throughout the architectural metal industry made no mention of zinc. The old catalogs called the metal white bronze, perhaps attempting to elicit a feeling of noteworthiness by taking on the name bronze. Metal foundries, art schools, and metal workers in the United States lacked any real knowledge of the metal. With the exception of galvanizing, the metal was all but forgotten after the early part of the twentieth century.

When I first started work at Zahner, a 125-year-old metal fabrication company located in the Midwest, zinc was not known as an architectural metal. We did not stock the metal, nor was it specified in any industry publications. We worked with steel, terne, copper, aluminum, stainless steel, and lead, but not zinc. One of the first introductions to the metal occurred during the restoration of the Folly Theater, a turn-of-the-century theater built in 1900. When the workers removed parts of the metal cornice and decorative metal baluster in 1979, they had difficulty determining what the metal was. This metal had lasted 80 years and still looked in good shape. It was silver under the paint, so it was not copper. It was not magnetic so it was not terne-plated steel or galvanized steel. It was heavy, so it wasn't aluminum, and aluminum had not been in common use by 1900. The pieces were spun and assembled in sections by soldering. It was not any metal we were familiar with. It was zinc. From the