Three specially engraved public artwork seats have been created by an Armadale business for Perth’s new Elizabeth Quay.
Graham van Zuilecom’s company Routers Australia engraved quotes with a Swan river theme from old newspaper clippings into the six-metre long, 610-kilogram spotted gum wooden seats.
Two quotes were from the West Australian newspaper from 1910 and 1950 while another was from Stories from Suburban Road in 1983.
Mr van Zuilecom said it was one of the toughest jobs his company had ever completed because their routing machine initially wouldn’t accept the size of the wood,” he said.
“It was a pure feat because they supplied the wood, no one else wanted to take it on because of the size and our machine wouldn’t even accept it in size.
“We had to work all weekend and we made a kit that raised the machine up another 100 millimetres to accommodate these huge beams so we could actually get them into the machine.
“Because they wanted fine detail we had to cut that with a one and a half millimetre cutter, which is pretty small for such a big chunk of wood and a lot of letters.
“It took a whole day to cut a line of letters.”
Mr van Zuilecom was proud to be a part of the project.
“It was a hell of a job as far as the amount of work involved,” he said.
“But the end result was perfect and it will look great down there on the quay.”
Mr van Zuilecom said he had also helped create concrete moulds for the quay.
The quay was expected to open by February and would be the new site of the Perth international arts festival.
