The Bulls Bridge Inn

W.J. Layman & Sons: Warren, CT Masters of Heavy Metal

By Bob Deakin

(The Abrasive Waterjet Cutting Machine. Photo courtesy of W.J. Layman & Sons of Warren, CT)

Hidden deep in the woods of Warren, Connecticut, on Keith Road are massive steel sculptures created by the late abstract artist Alexander Liberman. In the early 1960s, the painter and photographer needed help venturing into a new medium and neighbor Bill Layman lent a hand.

Originally from Maine, Mr. Layman had a repair shop nearby, down the hill from a shop owned by his brother-in-law, Ed Keith.

“I started branching out on my own little construction company, and had a couple pieces of equipment and I built that building to repair it,” Mr. Layman said. An internationally known artist and the editorial director of Condé Nast Publications, Mr. Liberman lived in the area and needed help holding the metal pieces he was welding together for sculptures. “After a while I could see that he couldn’t weld so I made a couple suggestions and he asked if I could weld.”

Mr. Layman, a quick study, became proficient with the craft, and his assistance soon became a full-time occupation and stayed that way for the next 30 years. Eventually, he would bring two of his sons into the business and they, too, worked for Mr. Liberman and occasionally for other artists. Mr. Liberman passed away in 1999 at the age of 87, and the Laymans have since moved on to help artists and non-artists alike.

The family has worked on, or repaired, the works of sculptors from around the globe as word of the quality of their work and their precision has spread. They credit New York art conservator Steven Tatti for some of the connections, and modestly acknowledge their own attention to detail and quality. They have assisted local artists such as Dave Colbert, Cheryl Smith and Peter Woytuk, and have repaired or helped restore works by Mark di Suvero, George Rickey, Isaac Witkin and many others.

Mr. Layman’s two sons, Ken and Keith, learned the craft from their father, but all three are otherwise self-taught, though Ken and Keith are both certified structural welders. Ken is now president of W.J. Layman & Sons Inc. and Keith is vice president.

The senior Mr. Layman still owns the business, though recent health problems have forced him to cut back on his work. He still helps out, however, and can be spotted at the shop every day.

“I don’t weld anymore,” he said recently, with a chuckle. “I think my days of the hard work are about over.”

Welding, custom fabrications and repair and refinishing of fine artworks are the services provided by W.J. Layman & Sons, Inc., though no two jobs are ever alike. On a recent autumn day, a large mower attachment for a farm tractor sat in the middle of the shop, its owner depending on having it back soon to keep up with chores on the farm.

Not lacking for work, the family recently hired a full-time welder, Woody Rahm, to help keep up with the projects and added a heavy duty, high-precision cutting machine a couple years ago.

“We’ve been to a lot of major cities in the United States and Dad’s been all over the world for Alex, either overseeing projects or going to look at a particular project with a sculpture,” Ken said, adding that he met his wife in Seattle on such an excursion.

Most projects now come to them in Warren.

“Mr. Tatti has clients all over the country and if it’s a job they want him to take care of, he brings the work to us,” Keith said, adding that the Laymans have worked with the conservator for the better part of 15 years.

“He’s got the type of clientele who calls him up at 10 o’clock in the morning and says, ‘I’ve booked you on the Concorde for two o’clock,” Ken chimed in. “You’ve got to fly to Italy and look at this piece for me.”

Keith Layman described how a sculpture by Daniel Chester French, who created the Lincoln Memorial, was damaged during an attempted heist.

“It was sent to Steve from the Midwest and was damaged. Somebody tried to steal it and ripped the base. It ripped right through the signature so Steve had to bring that to us and we worked about three days on it. When we were finished you could not tell there was ever any repair done to that piece.”

“When we were working for Alex, a lot of the time he didn’t want to see welds or bolts,” he noted. “He just wanted this thing to look like it had grown there.”

Sculptor Denis Curtiss of Kent sells his steel sculptures all over the country and uses the Laymans’ services to cut his steel and make an occasional weld. With their teaching, he has become a skilled welder himself.

“They are wonderful,” Mr. Curtiss said. “We’re both mechanics and we’re able to speak a common language.”

The Laymans can work from simple sketches or complex, computer-generated drawings.

“What Denis brings me is a sketch on a piece of paper, and I take that and I digitize it through the computer system and with our computer-controlled abrasive waterjet cutter, I’m cutting exactly what he wants,” Ken replied. “I give him finished pieces ready to weld together.”

The waterjet sprays a variably controlled stream of water and crushed garnet with more than 50,000 pounds pressure-a kind of accelerated erosion-to cut the material.

“It doesn’t melt the material, it erodes it,” Bill said. “No heat. No distortion.”

The expensive piece of equipment takes up about a 15-by-20-square-foot space in one of the two shops the Laymans have, and it can cut a 6-by-12-foot piece. The pieces to be cut rest on a slotted grate that floats above three feet of water. The waterjet can cut steel, glass, stone, marble, titanium, wood and any material-except tempered glass-up to four inches thick.

Ken handles the computer setup of the waterjet, which is accurate within ten-thousandths of an inch. The garnet does the cutting and is recycled while the water is filtered and brought back into the tank.

As for the projects requested by their clients, the Laymans said the majority are ornamental, though not always for an artist.

“The waterjet has been a real boost to the business because [there are] so many different mediums that we can work [with],” Keith said. “Before, it was basically steel, bronze and aluminum. Now we’re incorporating more stone and tile.”

“We’ve always worked with the artist, and we felt that our business was stagnant the way we were operating it and we needed to get into a wider base of clientele,” Ken divulged. “We needed to be able to handle the contractor who is building $2 million homes. We needed to handle the structural steel and the decorative stuff that was going into those homes. We needed to be able to handle the artists who have a $500,000 piece of art that needs repair.”

Yet the Laymans can still take on work from the local contractor who damaged a piece of equipment or is building a railing for a porch.

“That was one of Woody’s comments,” Ken said, referring to his fellow welder’s observation about fabricating metal pieces by hand as opposed to buying ready made parts at a Home Depot. “He said, ‘I never realized what it took to put together a railing-all the steps that go into it to make it look the way it needs to look for a particular client.’”

“Vilma Kurzer is an excellent case,” Keith said of the Kent artist who has made sculptures of birds and other beings from found objects. “When she came up here we kind of got a kick out of it because Liberman started out the same way. She said people were saying, ‘What’s that junk?’ or ‘What are you doing?’ but we understood what she was doing. This was what she wanted to do and we helped her get there.”

A six-day work week is often the norm at the business, but there are also children to bring to soccer games and other matters to take car
e of. Ken Layman is a selectman in Warren and Keith is chief of the ambulance crew and a firefighter.

“It’s tough to run a business in a small town and volunteer because there are so few people,” Keith said. “The last five years it’s been Kenny and I-Dad’s more or less retired-so when you lose 50 percent of your workforce for two and a half hours in the middle of the day that hurts.”

“Living in a small town, you’ve got to have it,” Ken said of the volunteer service.

It seems that the Laymans are simply a dedicated family, in all their endeavors, which explains why the business has plenty of projects in the works. “The phone keeps on ringing,” Ken said. “One job goes out the door, two more come in.”

(Originally published in The Litchfield County Times in 2004)

Copyright 2011