[HN Gopher] Painting the Eiffel Tower
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Painting the Eiffel Tower
Author : redbell
Score : 103 points
Date : 2023-08-04 11:16 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.toureiffel.paris)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.toureiffel.paris)
| lycos wrote:
| I would've loved to see those early colors in person
| layer8 wrote:
| Or at least in photograph.
| petepete wrote:
| At least photographs of the Eiffel tower before 1985 can't
| fall foul of their slightly obsessive copyright restrictions.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just turn it to black&white, and then ask Color Diffusion to
| colorize it for you
| amelius wrote:
| They should try bright pink.
|
| Or paint it white, then use lighting to make it change colors.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm surprised they have not installed LEDs on it to make it
| whatever color they want
| yoz-y wrote:
| For the colours with light they already do it, only on
| occasions though.
| tmountain wrote:
| A painting campaign lasts between 18 months and 3 years, and the
| tower is repainted every 7 years. So, basically it's being
| painted upwards of 35% of the time for longer campaigns. That's a
| lot of maintenance!
| p-e-w wrote:
| A paint job takes up to 3 years today, yet the _entire tower_
| (including painting) was built in 2 years, 140 years ago?!?
| bombcar wrote:
| It wasn't open while it was being built, but it _is_ open
| while being painted.
|
| And I dare say they could paint it _much much faster_ if they
| really needed to, but it would involve very large crew for a
| short period of time.
|
| Better for everyone involved if the work is basically steady
| - then you can hire one group or company for a three year
| stint, instead of hiring 5-10x for 6 months.
| contravariant wrote:
| Might even be better to delay it even further so you can
| just keep painting indefinitely with a small crew.
| TylerE wrote:
| That's what SF doesa with the golden gate. Want to say it
| gets repainted every 18 months or something?
| hammock wrote:
| I imagine you could just tape it, wrap it and then fumigate
| it with paint. Would go much quicker.
|
| Someone tell me why I'm wrong
| whycome wrote:
| > fumigate
|
| I guess it'd be more like the electrostatic paint they do
| for cars. Negatively charge your object and positively
| charge your paint...
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| You'll miss lots of nooks and crannies because you can't
| convince the air currents to blow in every conceivable
| way to move paint around. You air movement apparatus will
| take on much of the paint, probably causing it to
| function in much less than an ideal manner. There are
| challenges with keeping the paint wet while moving it
| with air pressure.
|
| You could probably get VC funding to solve these problems
| and then you'd be onto something.
| bombcar wrote:
| Depending on how paint "wears out" maybe the parts you
| would miss are the parts that don't really need to be
| repainted.
| kulahan wrote:
| I don't think there's any part of the structure that
| doesn't need repainted, or rain/dust will get in and tear
| it apart over decades.
| gffrd wrote:
| Where do you think "speed" sits on the stack-ranking of
| priorities for Eiffel Tower repainting/surface
| maintenance?
|
| For a monument of its value, I would almost think
| speed/lower cost would be seen as red flags.
| franky47 wrote:
| The obvious, much quicker way would be to drop the
| required 60 tonnes of paint from Canadairs in a fly by.
| /s
| Karellen wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Bridge#Maintenance
| trvr wrote:
| They also appear to be stripping the old paint during this
| re-painting process.
| contravariant wrote:
| To be fair that would mean taking it apart, repainting and
| rebuilding it would optimistically take 4 years, so painting
| it in situ is still faster.
| jameson71 wrote:
| I think the question is why does it take longer to paint it
| than it took to build it?
| jccalhoun wrote:
| The article says there are 50 painters. I'm sure there
| were more than 50 people working to build it.
| manarth wrote:
| Did they build it then paint it? Or paint it (the
| components, during fabrication), then build it, with
| already-painted components?
| Retric wrote:
| They pained individual pieces before assembly but that
| was included in the total construction time.
| dylan604 wrote:
| that's the point of the question. of course this is much
| faster than building then painting.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Because they probably didn't need to strip any old paint
| off first.
|
| I my experience of painting houses etc (limited I know),
| the actual painting bit is the final 25-33% of the time.
| The rest of it is making the rest of it _ready to be
| painted_. So stripping off, preparing the surfaces,
| making good any bad bits etc ... only then can you start
| to paint it.
|
| When they had fresh new metal to work with they could
| probably just paint straight away with zero prep. It may
| have even arrived at the site already primed. Plus it was
| probably easier logistics too in terms of seeing which
| bits were painted or not - if you are painting over the
| same colour it is hard to know what you have done and
| what you have not unless you are quite meticulous.
| However if you have a good contrast you could just give
| paintbrushes to 100 people and say "keep painting until
| all the grey bits are red" or whatever and not worry
| about the planning or tracking of which bits have been
| done when - just keep going until everything is red or
| whatever.
| brewtide wrote:
| As a housepainter, this is probably the best reasoning
| and where my mind immediately jumped to. The prep work in
| painting is as you said the majority of the work -- many
| many many hours spent first slowly destroying something
| further, then bringing a surface back to the state where,
| finally, you get to make it all one solid color of
| protection, once again.
|
| Generally the largest difference in a homeowner painted
| themselves vs a professional painter -- the amount of
| prep work required can be astronomical and absolutely
| mind numbing but without it, one will never end up with
| the final very nice and long(er) lasting result.
|
| Once again, you get back what you put in!
| guhidalg wrote:
| This guy paints.
|
| Seriously though, if you use house drywall painting over
| existing paint as an example, the actual "paint on
| surface" step really is short. In my most recent paint
| adventure the procedure was:
|
| o move furniture
|
| o lay down canvas
|
| o tape
|
| o sand
|
| o [prime, depends on base and final color]
|
| o paint
|
| o wait to dry
|
| o sand
|
| o paint
|
| o undo the coverings.
|
| o enjoy.
|
| It is very difficult to get all that done in one day, but
| I see new house interiors get basically painted in one-
| two day by a crew of like 6 guys, followed by an unending
| series of touch-ups where the painters did a half-assed
| job on trim, ceilings, and large featureless wall
| sections where it's difficult to see where paint is
| lacking.
|
| IME Painting is boring and very easy to get wrong so I
| have respect for painters that patiently do the job right
| the first time.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Painting a room is one of those weird jobs that takes a
| lot of concentration (especially cutting in), and very
| little thought. I find it goes better with a beer in one
| hand. Given that basically every paint can opener on the
| planet is also a bottle opener, I suspect that I'm not
| the only one.
| DougBTX wrote:
| The numbers measure different things, so hard to compare. One
| of the biggest sources of variation listed is the weather,
| while the first paint was done in a workshop (presumably
| where there is no influence from the weather).
|
| Also, a painting campaign also includes:
|
| > ... a preparatory stage to search for the most corroded
| areas ... these areas are then stripped, and a first coat of
| an anti-rust primer is applied
|
| ...presumably there was no corrosion just after the parts
| were originally made.
| stephen_g wrote:
| For sure on corrosion/rust - I'm experiencing this on a
| very small scale now - I'm working on repainting my old
| barbecue, it's incredible how much time it takes to strip,
| apply rust remover, clean, fill, sand, prime and repaint
| the metal parts. Easily 5 to 10 times as much effort and
| time than it would take to paint fresh parts.
| wongarsu wrote:
| On the other hand, building it took a lot more manyears than
| one round of repainting.
| soared wrote:
| Because they're using very old methods. We have much more
| modern ways to paint metal that aren't being used. They could
| use electrostatic painting and finish the thing in a day if
| they really wanted.
|
| https://www.ghasterpaintinginc.com/blog/what-
| electrostatic-p....
| [deleted]
| foobarfoox2 wrote:
| Doing this with fewer employees over a longer period of time
| may just be more efficient. Surely they could speed it up by
| throwing more money at it, but does that help with anything?
| bfeynman wrote:
| as an analogy, consider that renovating often is much more
| difficult and complex than new construction. As you build up
| you're making some irreversible moves, i.e. you build a door
| or a set of trusses, now you can't move a large piece through
| it anymore.
| yttribium wrote:
| Similar maintenance schedule to large steel naval vessels. Rust
| never sleeps.
| danjc wrote:
| It's like rolling updates. You don't want to take the whole
| cluster offline while you upgrade. reply
| adolph wrote:
| They should probably just rebuild it in cor-ten and be done
| with it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weathering_steel
| ihaveajob wrote:
| The Golden Gate Bridge is constantly being painted. The
| conditions are harsher, I suppose.
| https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/is-the-golden-gate-bridg...
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| I thought this was a fact of all famous and suitably large
| bridges like the Sydney harbour and Forth bridges. Because
| painting doesn't effect the running of the bridge much they
| just hire enough painters that gets the bridge painted in
| time and then start again. Apparently the Forth bridge now
| uses a new paint that means it doesn't need to be painted for
| 20 years though
| YZF wrote:
| Seeing the signs near the Golden Gate Bridge about how it's
| painted (EDIT: like a decade ago) made me think that it'd be
| a good idea to use drones to paint it. I explored that idea a
| bit deeper but it never went anywhere. There are/were some
| attempts at painting drones. I still think it'd be cool and
| could be made to work ;)
| ihaveajob wrote:
| I suppose the risk of pollution would be too high, but it'd
| make for a cool demo.
|
| Once on a bike ride, I met a guy who worked painting the
| GGB. He said he was about 50, but look 65, so it seemed
| plausible. He wasn't wearing a helmet even on descents,
| which I asked him about, and his answer was that he spends
| all day in a harness with hard helmet, so the last thing he
| wanted was more helmet time in the weekend.
| [deleted]
| twelve40 wrote:
| one lifehack for me was to skip the claustrophobic packed
| elevator and to go on foot, at least on the way down. Ran into
| almost no people, much closer experience of the tower.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Reminds me anecdotally, at least in local folklore- the Forth
| Road Bridge near Edinburgh. One man would paint it and as soon as
| he's finished, he had to start again due to the size of it.
|
| Engineering marvels, but maintenance required.
| erickhill wrote:
| I have a recurring nightmare where I'm painting the top of the
| Seattle Space Needle. I'm tethered to the roof with a belt and
| rope. I have a paint roller on a long stick about the length of a
| broom. I have to walk to the edge of the top of the saucer, and
| every dang time I accidentally drop the stick, which falls over
| the edge. Sometimes a seagull flies close to me startling me, or
| a stiff wind, or just a fumbling of my hands. Fearing for the
| safety of the families down below I scramble to try and snatch it
| and lose my balance and footing and go over the edge.
|
| I'm tethered to the roof so I don't plunge to the ground. But I'm
| violently swinging hundreds of feet in mid-air unable to get back
| up. It's always the same. And I can feel the wind, my hands
| sweating, my feet tingling and my heart beating beyond belief.
| Usually when I start to fall over the edge I wake up. Sometimes I
| dangle for a second or two as I dizzily flip around hearing
| muffled screams from far below.
|
| I can't imagine being one of the people forced to paint the
| Eiffel Tower, or Golden Gate Bridge - whatever. The thought of it
| makes me ill.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Forced to paint? Do they use prison labor or something?
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Hey, Eiffel tower: if it's illegal to photograph you, taking a
| photograph slower by using human hands and paint using the you as
| canvas should be just as illegal. Stop trying to have your cake
| and eat it, too, Paris has a history of cake-related incidents
| that apply here.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| To say nothing of your argument around painting the Eiffel
| Tower (which I assume you meant in a different sense than the
| article...)
|
| It has been legal to photograph the Eiffel Tower since 1993
| (its copyright expired.) It is legal to take photographs of the
| Eiffel Tower's light show since Oct 2016 ("freedom of
| panorama") unless used for commercial purposes.
| jabl wrote:
| Wonder what kind of paints they use nowadays? Presumably ye olde
| lead oxide paints are verboten.
|
| While I'm no expert on this topic, it seems zinc epoxy primer +
| polysiloxane topcoat is the state of the art these days for
| industrial / marine steel coating applications.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Surely you mean lead oxide paints are _interdite_ >.<
| Kuinox wrote:
| French newspaper critized the current company managing the Eiffel
| Tower, saying they botched maintenance job:
| https://www.marianne.net/societe/mal-en-point-rouillee-la-to...
| achr2 wrote:
| Marianne est peut-etre pas la meilleure source..
| jylam wrote:
| Pourquoi ?
| tasogare wrote:
| [dead]
| divbzero wrote:
| The Eiffel-inspired tower in Tokyo is painted orange to comply
| with air safety regulations [1]. The color always looked odd to
| me but I guess it's not so different from the Eiffel in the past.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Tower
| redbell wrote:
| So basically, the Eiffel Tower has been painted nearly twenty
| times. It's been shades of red, yellow, brown, and grey, and has
| never been painted black.. yet I always had the impression of it
| being black.
| scbrg wrote:
| _I see a Tower and I want to paint it black..._
|
| I've never thought of it black, and I'm a bit at loss as how
| someone could do so. Look, for instance, at the picture from
| the associated Wikipedia article. Does that strike you as
| _black_?
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Tour_Eif...
| saalweachter wrote:
| It's probably souvenir tchotchkes, eg:
| https://www.amazon.com/Eiffel-Tower-Statue/dp/B072KLPVG5/
| Muskwalker wrote:
| Lots of black-and-white pictures, lots of pictures in
| silhouette.
|
| Pictures of the tower can also have a lot of... texture? If
| you don't know you're looking at "brown with shadows" you
| might think you're looking at "black with highlights."
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| In Person it really looks like dark gray. None of the
| pictures I took last time I was there look anything like the
| picture linked. They show a very dark gray tower.
| stephen_g wrote:
| Depends on the light, in the ones I have from April it
| looks quite brown but in my pics from cloudier days it does
| look a bit more of a brown-grey colour.
| xutopia wrote:
| I once read that it took 7 tons of paint for a single coat.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I read just now, from the article, that it takes 60 tons of
| paint total.
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