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This past summer volunteers from Washington’s New Dungeness Light Station Association did an awesome job of painting the 63-foot tower.
Painting the lighthouse was no easy task and required transporting the paint and all the supplies out to the lighthouse and then getting the equipment and paint up to the top of the tower.
Les Samples, who owns Les Samples Timber, used his tree cutting experience to hang from the tower using a paint sprayer instead of his normal tool – a chain saw. Ropes were secured around the base of the lantern so that the climbing ropes could slide and rotate, enabling Les to make complete circles around the tower. A set of lines were attached to each end of the rope and other ends of the lines were secured to a waist belt to hold Les in place. These lines ran through pulleys so he could lower himself down the tower.
As Les advanced around the tower, the volunteers on the lantern lifted and moved the support lines forward so he could encircle the tower. Les would spray an area three to four feet square and then use a paint roller to even out the paint. He would then move forward and repeat the process.
Showing community support, the 15 gallons of paint and primer were donated by Rodda Paint of Sequim, Washington.
Our thanks go to Jean Reed for the information for this story and to Chad Kaiser, General Manager of the New Dungeness Light Station for the photos.
This story appeared in the
Nov/Dec 2015 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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