Print
Nov 14, 2007 6:51 pm US/Eastern
New Jersey Company Rehabiliates Local Dino Exhibit
PATERSON, N.J. (KDKA) ―
-
-
All of the old varnished was removed and life-like poses were determined for the dino skeletons.
KDKA
A nondescript building in Paterson, New Jersey is the site of a huge project to refurbish two T-Rexes that belong to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
KDKA's Mary Robb Jackson went inside for a special tour of the 11,000 square-foot hangar-like space called "Phil Fraley Productions."
It's up to the exhibit fabricators to bring the beasts back to life.
It's a bit like "Bob the Builder" meets Jurassic Park.
A team of machinists, ironworkers, welders, restoration artists and sculptors have spent the past three years disassembling, tagging, restoring, documenting and then reassembling the ancient monsters and posing them using all that's been learned over the past century since they were unearthed and first mounted.
"So that all of this now is correct with current scientific thought on how these animals lived and moved," said
Phil Fraley, the museum exhibit fabricator.
Fraley originally wanted to be a pro football player but fell in love with dinosaurs instead.
With a single pelvis bone of a T-Rex weighing more than 700 pounds, Project Manager Larry Lee says handling these fossilized bones can be very tricky.
"Some of it is very thick and heavy as a stone would be, but some of it is very thin and delicate like a potato chip," said Lee.
This second generation of dinosaur mount makers is discovering a lot about the first men who did this job at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History using carbon steel, bronze and brass to frame the specimen bones.
While some of today's techniques are an improvement over the old, the Fraley crew decided to recycle the steel used in the original mounts.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
