Lens Restoration Project

From the July 2002 newsletter

Ponce Inlet Light Station has been illuminated by three different Fresnel lenses over the past 115 years. The original, installed after completion of the tower in 1887, was a fixed first order built in Paris, France by Barbier and Fenestre. After electrification in 1933, it was replaced by a third-order rotating Fresnel lens brought from the Sapelo Lighthouse in Georgia. The intensity of an electric light source allowed the third-order lens to project its beam of light the same distance outward as an oil lit first order, while also being smaller and easier to maintain. The current Fresnel lens was installed by the Coast Guard in 1982.This modern beacon, a Vega 25, was manufactured in New Zealand and is extremely compact, lightweight, and reliable. It requires minimal maintenance and allows the Coast Guard's Ponce Inlet Aids to Navigation unit more time to focus on maintaining the many other navigational aids in its jurisdiction.

The Lighthouse Association is about to begin the restoration and exhibition of the Light Station's original lens. Funding for this project is being provided in part by a $35,000 exhibit grant from the Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources. Ponce Inlet Light Station's original lens was once thought lost. After many years of searching by the curatorial staff of the Lighthouse Association, this priceless piece of Florida history was found in storage at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. It is now on long-term loan to the Lighthouse Association from the U.S. Coast Guard but, due to its poor condition, major restoration will be needed before it can be exhibited.

First order lenses were among the largest ever built. These optically sophisticated artifacts were created to concentrate the relatively weak light of an oil lantern and project it out to sea for up to eighteen miles. Over six feet in diameter and fifteen feet high, first order Fresnel lenses are bee-hived shaped structures built of brass frames and hundreds of crystal prisms. Costing thousands of dollars in the 1800s, first order lenses were state of the art at the time. The nightly illumination of the lens was the reason Light Stations were constructed and maintained at such great expense by the U.S. Lighthouse Service. The care and maintenance of this lens was the primary activity of the families that lived at this remote and environmentally harsh location. As the Light Station's original lens, no other artifact has more significance to this National Historic Landmark.

When completed, our museum will have one of the finest first order lens exhibits in the nation. The museum's lens exhibit building currently has the fully restored first order rotating lens from the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse on display as well as several other examples of lens technology. This building was originally constructed with space to display two first order lenses in the event that the Association could locate and restore its original lens. After completion of this project visitors will be able to compare the features of rotating as opposed to fixed lenses, all on the magnificent first order level.

The Ponce Inlet Lighthouse Preservation Association is uniquely qualified to carry out a restoration project of this type. As one of the first organizations dedicated to lighthouse preservation and restoration, the Association has successfully completed many highly complex and expensive projects. As a result it has access to individuals in the field of Fresnel lens restoration and metal fabrication that will be required to undertake this project.

The Association has also recently completed a state-of-the-art maintenance building that includes a large facility specially designed to do restoration projects of this type for our museum as well as other institutions.

This project has already required a great deal of work just to estimate its feasibility and cost. After receiving the lens parts from the Mystic Seaport Museum a detailed inventory and assessment of the lens parts was undertaken to determine the number and type of broken or missing prisms that will require replication. Missing hardware, decking and base cabinet parts as well as screws, bolts and other fasteners that can't be purchased off the shelf were noted.

The missing parts will be fabricated by contractors who have proven themselves in numerous other lighthouse restoration projects. The replacement items have been patterned on the Assateague Lighthouse lens on display in Chincoteague, Virginia. This lens was built by the same manufacturer and is thought to be identical to the Ponce Inlet lens. Both contractors visited the Oyster Museum in Chincoteague to measure and photograph the items that need to be replaced.

The lens exhibit will rest on a replicated cast iron base assembly consisting of a cabinet and deck, painted forest green, the historically correct color of the lens base. The brass prism frames and three parabolic reflector panels will be polished by a nearly abrasive-free process.

The prisms that remained in the brass frames during shipping from Mystic were marked and removed because most of them were loose when it arrived. Once the lens panels are polished, these prisms as well as the newly fabricated replicas will be refitted using hardwood wedges and window putty.

Final assembly will entail painting the base, erecting the wrought iron framework, and attaching the polished brass lens panels and their newly affixed glass lens prisms to the frame.