Knapp's special section: Every 75 years, need it or not

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Once upon a time, the Knapp´s Department Store building in downtown Lansing was clad in gleaming porcelain from stem to stern.

Porcelain, the translucent, glassy result of firing clay and assorted additives in a super-hot oven, was the zoot suit of choice for hundreds of Art Deco diners, bars and gas stations from the 1930 to the 1960s. The exterior of the Knapp´s building is among the most powerful panoplies of porcelain ever placed before the public.

Now the only porcelain bits left on the building are the KNAPP´S letters standing guard at the northeast corner.

The porcelain panels, ruined by corroded steel backing and fasteners, have been replaced by modern aluminum-and-polymer doppelgängers.

The four-foot-high letters were entrusted to Frank Corum of Cherokee Porcelain Panel Corp. in Knoxville, Tenn. Corum has been in the porcelain business 59 years. He´ll gladly tell you the history of porcelain, from ancient Egyptian cloisonné jewelry to the first porcelain in American homes — protective trays to put under blocks of ice in iceboxes.

Cherokee, one of a dwindling number of shops specializing in porcelain, still makes the signs for Cracker Barrel restaurants and replacement panels for White Castle hamburger joints when a truck hits an overhang or "a lady drives into the wall." (Corum, 81, has old-school notions about women, organized labor and government regulations.) The company also makes signs for NASA, the Chicago Transit Authority, the New York subway system, and panels for other subways, airports, tunnels and buildings. The vintage diner trade is another staple.

"There´s still a place for porcelain," Corum said.

Corum trucked through Lansing many years ago, doubtless hauling panels to a White Castle, but never saw the Knapp´s building. He saw a part of it up close and personal when the letters arrived by truck at his shop earlier this year.

"They packed them up beautifully," Corum said.

The letters were faded and covered with pits and abrasions from 75 years of organic particles raining down from the sky and etching the surface. Two letters, and the apostrophe, were too rusted out to save. (Corum didn´t say which ones, but pre-restoration photos of Knapp´s show the "K" and the "S" looking pretty rough.) His crew made new ones to match.

The rest were immersed in a caustic cleaner and rinsed. Rust spots were ground away and the exposed metal was filled.

The letters were hand-cleaned, end to end, with Windex and lint-free cloths. Workers wore special gloves because the organic oils left by fingerprints and handprints bake into the letters and show up after firing.

Where the structure was weakened, workers "welded a little bit more meat back into it," Corum said.

After a second cleaning, more exacting than the first, a prime coat of porcelain was sprayed on the letters. The porcelain is impregnated with microscopic bubbles, invisible to the human eye, to keep the surface smooth.

Corum loves to explain those bubbles.

"If any minuscule hydrogen or carbon particles boil out of the metal, they will hopefully scream and holler and find one of those little bubbles to hide in, unless they´re large enough and mean enough to come all the way through the surface and create a chip on the face."

The dreaded chip is called a "fish scale" because it makes the porcelain look like a fish with a missing scale. If any fish scales show up on the surface, the whole process is repeated.

The prime coat was fired at about 1,500 degrees. The letters were coated with deep blue porcelain and fired a second time. Finally, all the letters, old and new, were given a third coat and fired a third time so they would all match.

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