The James Monroe tomb in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia was completely disassembled, cleaned, re-painted and reassembled to fix broken and missing elements and to properly coat and rust protect the cast iron. The tomb is completely constructed of cast iron to emulate the design aesthetic of carved stone and during the planning for restoration it was discovered that initially the cast iron was painted to match the color of quarried stone. It is exciting to discover such a pure vision of cast iron decoration emulating stone and now that the tomb has been accurately restored we can see how it would have looked.
Richmond Iron recast missing elements primarily by directly sand molding original castings in resin bonded sand. Loose piece molding from originals is a good method for accurately reproducing small numbers of cast elements and relies upon the skills of an experienced sculptor to get good results.
