HOME Antiques Arts & Collectibles - October 3, 1999
The Fairfield County Times - December 1997

ARTISTS AT WORK Lifelong Friends Stephen Grisanti and Anthony Cassano wire a chandelier. They are the men to see if you have old or neglected objects that need another chance at life.

Shine on and on...
Objects dulled by age get a second life
By Mary Beth Faller

   Greenwich Metal Finishing marries Old World craftsmanship with space-age technology to refurbish beautiful objects that have been dulled by age or neglect.
   Silver pieces that are blackened with tarnish are repaired and restored to brilliance. Great, glittering chandeliers are painstakingly taken apart, piece by piece, rewired, refinished, cleaned, waxed and reassembled.
    In addition to renewing the usual heirlooms, partners Stephen Grisanti and Anthony Cassano offer services you never knew existed for parts of your home that you don't often think about, such as trophies, doorknobs, faucets, musical instruments, firearms, outdoor lanterns, boat hardware, countertops and weather vanes -- anything metal. And they'll brighten up your corporate workplace too, refinishing sculptures, fountains and elevator doors.
    "We do a tremendous amount of work for churches. We'll replace chalices, hardware, door- knobs, escutcheons," Grisanti says.
    The lifelong friends started their business in 1996 in a small area at 67 Church St. in Greenwich. Now. that's the showroom, where customers drop off their heirlooms. In spring 1998, the partners renovated a 4000-square-foot cinderblock buildinlg in Stamford's South End.
    That's where the rnagic happens. The state-of-the-art blasting and polishing rooms roar while craftsmen labor over each piece. Priceless silver and gold items, large and small, are arranged neatly on shelves. The workspaces are spotless.
    One of the shop's specialties is refurbishing chandeliers, a complex, delicate affair, starting with removal from the client's home.
    "You can't just unhang it and put it in your van," Grisanti says. "You have to remove it piece by piece. If one crystal falls, it disintegrates"
   The chandelier's center frame is smothered in bubble wrap and the whole thing is taken to the workshop. There each crystal is logged, a process that can take up to three hours.
    Once logged, each crystal is cleaned and polished to resist dust. Missing crystals are replaced. Grisanti and Cassano have developed sources for crystal in Europe, inlcluding Italy and the Czech Republic. "lt has to match exactly," he says, "with the same tone and cut.
    The metalwork is refinished and lacquered, and then rewired. Likewise, missing metal parts are replaced. "If we can't find the part, we'll cast it here," he says.
    Then the chandelier is reassembled, with each crystal rehung by gold wire that is reoxidized to look old.
    The entire piece is placed in a foam-filled crate and taken back to the home, where the staff will remount it from the attic using a winch. The chandelier can be mounted on a cable that is electrically lowered for cleaning. This whole process costs about $500 to $600, and Grisanti says such a refurbishing will last years.
    Smaller chandeliers that are dropped off are photographed before disassembly. If clients wish to reassemble and rehang a chandelier themselves, the company will mark the parts.
    The firm does much business converting European chandeliers and other lighting to United States' specifications, he says.
    Chandeliers are painstaking to refurbish, requiring a lot of handwork. But high technology has a place in the business, too.
    "Some technology is labor saving," he says. "The old-fashioned way is to strip by hand, but this way, it can be done in 20 to 30 seconds."
    In the walk-in blasting booth, the technician wears an air-conditioned suit with a big helmet, like an astronaut. He uses a hose that blasts fine aluminum oxide dust onto large items, such as aluminum countertops, lawn furniture, fountains and the like. The aluminum oxide can be recycled.
    ''We never use sand, which contains silica, which is damaging to the lungs," Grisanti says.
    A smaller blasting unit is shaped like a chest-high baby incubator. The worker's arms are placed into mitts attached to the side and the piece -- in this case, a horse-shaped copper weather vane -- is inside the unit. One hand holds the blaster and the other holds the piece. In seconds, fine plastic particles blast the green patina off the horse and the copper once again glows an orangy red. A hundred hours with a hundred Q-Tips couldn't reproduce the perfect stripping of the blaster.
   Next are the polishers.
   "The polishers are like artists,'' Grisanti says. "Polishing is dangerous, with the lathe going around. It's not a forgiving machine."
    A series of buffs, from abrasive to medium to fine, is used to bring out the glow in the finish.
    After polishing, a piece might be lacquered. The lacqluers are mixed in a high-tech, explosion-proof room, then applied to the item by masked workers in a coating room that has a room-sized vent.
    The array of services the partners provide is fascinating. Refinishing great-grandma's silver tea service is about as basic as it gets, but even then, Grisanti and Cassano have branched out.
    "Sterling is beautiful to work with." Grisanti says, "You can make it perfect. We remove a lot of engraving from items people buy at tag sales."
    The partners have formulated a unique baked-on epoxy for outdoor and marine use that protects metal from UV rays. A patent is pending on the product, which is ideal for boats, as well as metalwork that is exposed to salt air, such as outdoor railings and lanterns. "We've used it for waterfront country clubs with chandeliers," he says.
    They have finished radiators for landlords, a job that Grisanti admits is back-breaking and not especially creative.
    An old barber's chair sits in a back room. "It will cost $2,000 to rechrome that," Grisanti says. "Most of the cost will be in taking it apart. You're paying for the time, not the chrome." The client is considering it.    "We work for painting contractors. If you spend $3,000 to paint eight rooms you're not going to put back the old dirty hinges," Grisanti says. So he'll refurbish the doorknobs, hinges, faucets or other metalwork. "And it's addictive. People will do one room, see it, and do the rest of the house."
    Sometimes, Greenwich Metal Finishing works backward.
    "One chandelier came in with a bright, polished finish. The client wanted a distressed look, a verde patina," Grisanti says. "So that's what we did. The finish may age a little more, but now no maintenance."
    Metals can be finished with a high gloss, matte or antiqued look. "The beauty of the patinas is that they're all different.
    "We're both perfectionists," Grisanti says of the partners. "Our hands touch every job."
    Greenwich Metal FInishing can be reached at (203) 629-8479.

– Mary Beth Faller is a frequent contributor to HOME magazine.

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Proto Finish: In Greenwich And Stamford, A Business Proves Its Mettle
Written by ANNE LONGLEY
Photographed by BRETT C VERMILYEA

   The name, Greenwich Metal Finishing, speaks of science. To appreciate the art, spend some time with Stephen Grisanti and Anthony Cassano and hear them talk about the breadth and depth of what they offer--whether it's a relatively simple polishing job or the replating of ornate candlesticks, the refinishing of antique outdoor lighting or the complete restoration of a brass chandelier.
    The idea for Greenwich Metal Fishing was in the making for two years. "Tony and I grew up together and we've been in business together," says Mr. Grisanti. "We live in the same town, in Rye, New York, and both have Families. All the research for this business we've done together. We're partners, 50-50. We'd both always worked with metaI soldering, brazing, shining. It was just a natural progression that we had a shop."
   Describing his partner as "amazing," Mr. Grisanti said: "Whether it's repairing or fabricating something, he can do it. He's more behind the scenes and I'm more of the people person, and thats how we run the company."
    For anyone unfamiliar with the art of metalwork, a trip to the shop is an education in the kind of refinishing and restoration that can be accomplished. Something that to the unschooled eye appears hopeless can be completely redone so that it looks new, or handsomely reflects its age and antiquity.
    On a recent Wednesday, the tiny shop was packed with items that had just come in, were in the process of being redone or were ready to go home. A beautiful sterling-silver filigree bowl from 1906 had just arrived for a polishing.
    Asked why good old elbow grease and a little silver polish from a jar at home might not do the job, Mr. Grisanti replies: "When I get done with that, it'll look like glass.
    "Getting the shine is accomplished through a series of steps," he continues. "You start out with a coarse compound, then the next step is using a medium that brings out the shine, and the buffing is the final touch. To this day, every piece I do, I'm just amazed at how incredible they turn out. You have to be into it. The reason we're successful in auto detailing is...the details. And this is the same. We're perfectionists. When we return something it looks like it just came out of the box."
   Another item that had just arrived was what looked like an Art Nouveau planter. Whoever had long ago attached the brass ivy vines and delicate birds to the pewter pot was clearly enamored of solder--or at least was trying to make sure those things never came off.
    The job was tricky, Mr. Grisanti admitted: to refinish the pot properly, he'd have to remove all the ornamentation, then undo the sloppy soldering job. "Breaking the solder is the only way I can redo the bowl so it's beautiful. Then I can reattach the vines and birds properly. That's what makes this job interesting. Every day, it's something new and always different."
    The tiny backroom workshop in Greenwich was crammed with everything from copper pots to chandeliers, simple creamers to a country-club awards plaque dating from the early part of this century.
    One of the advantages of Mr. Grisanti's hands-on service is that he can often show customers when they come in just how good their piece will look when he and his staff are done. For example, the brass plates on the awards plaque were deeply tarnished--so much so that one could hardly read the winners' names. The wood base also was scratched and the finish peeling. While the representative of the local country club stood by, Mr. Grisanti cursorily polished one of the plates so that the warm gold finish came through. There wasno need to wonder and worry how it would look when the piece was done--it would be a showpiece.
    Another customer brought in a copper pot, and Mr. Grisanti offered the choice of a high gloss or butler finish (more of a matte, or satin, look)--then demonstrated both. The customer, who had not known what a butler finish was, liked it so much that she chose it.
    Hanging from the ceiling were a pair of sconces that had needed a complete overhaul. "We had to finely sandblast them, because they were pitted," Mr. Grisanti says. "Then we completely rewelded, primed them and painted them." Now, they awaited the final touch--the artist who would recreate the original paintings on the front.
    Lighting restoration is another big component of Greenwich Metal. "We will completely disassemble a chandelier or other lighting fixture, restore the base metal, clean and wax the crystals, do the wiring and any repairs," says Mr. Grisanti. "We can turn anything into a lamp, too--for example, a trumpet or candlestick--we get a lot of candlesticks that people want to be made into lamps."
    Much of Greenwich Metal's work is on heirloom pieces that owners--whether family members or antique stores--want restored to their original condition. They also offer a cleaning and polishing service for weddings, parties and corporate affairs.
    They also do commercial work for designers, decorators and architectural companies in New York, Florida, Boston and other places on the East Coast. Restoration of unique details in older homes and public buildings is also a specialty, and the company works closely with homeowners and builders.
    Their biggest and perhaps most unusual job now is creating eight elevator doors and other parts of the lifts for Ralph Lauren's new store in Chicago. The Lauren reps chose a verde patina with slight bronze overtone that takes skilled hands and several chemicals to create. By the time they're done, the elevators will look like they came right out the 1940's. Recently, Greenwich Metal also did several plaques for the Saks Fifth Avenue store on Greenwich Avenue.
    Prices range anywhere from $25, for a simple cleaning and polishing of a doorknob set, to $1,200, to re-silver an entire tea set. Everything is wrapped with tissue paper and bubble wrap for protection.
    Working in the cramped Church Street quarters has been a challenge, says Mr. Grisanti, especially since the business was so successful right away. The new Stamford factory boasts 4,000 square feet and was designed to accommodate the latest in sandblasting booths; lacquering, polishing and painting rooms, and restoration and cleaning sites, as well as the company's offices. Customers, however, will still drop off and pick up their items at Church Street, where everything is documented, identified and videotaped upon receipt and all work is completely insured against damage or loss.
    In just over a year, Greenwich Metal has done at least a couple of thousand jobs, Mr. Grisanti estimates. So has there ever been one he found he couldn't do? "None," he says. "The only job we won't do is when someone wants something less than our standards."

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