Crafty Plasterer

About Aagaard Hanley

Robert Aagaard and Ted Hanley founded Aagaard Hanley in 1979. Working from the Owlcoates Centre in Leeds the small firm had only 3 members of staff. In 1986 Robert Aagaard retired and soon after, in 1991 the firm relocated to Bramley.

The site in Stanningley Road was derelict and Aagaard Hanley was awarded £50,000 in government grant aid to develop it and consequently restore it back to an employment site.

Aagaard Hanley now employs 25 members of staff and is a successful business and one of the few plastering companies with full ISO Quality Control Systems.

Over the years Aagaard Hanley has won many awards, these include: the Scottish Award in 1997 for work on the Edinburgh Sheriff Courts, and the 1998 Regional award for work in the Glasgow Courts.

Have you seen the light..?

Dave and Ted are looking forward to visiting the lighting show in Birmingham on Sunday where there will be some of Aagaard Hanley's products displayed. We will update you on this next week!

Back to it's former glory!

Aagaard Hanley not only manufactures new plaster products but it's team are experts in restoration. In my quest to learn more about the firm and what it does, I found a recent project which was the restoration of some old cornice which dates back 100 years.

Aagaard Hanley were subcontracted by a buliding firm working on this particular project and were on site for around 6 weeks restoring the cornicing in the entrance hall.

At the end of the project, it is clear to see the vast improvement, as the cornicing is restored back to its original state.

  The picture bottom left is the mould used to cast the new beam sections

that you can see were missing on the first picture.The beams were cast in leeds and transported to site to be fixed.

               

 

         

                                                                     

Plaster's past

I didn't know I was going to be an expert in plastering, but seeing as Aagaard Hanley is an award winning manufacturer of fibrous plaster and supplier of polished plaster and lighting products; I thought I'd better learn...

Yet, what is fibrous plaster and where does it come from?

Plaster is a relatively harmless dry powder made from gypsum rock. The mineral gypsum is commonly found. In Britain, the most frequently found type is alabaster. Gypsum is white or pale grey in colour and occurs in sedimentary beds or veins, these range in thickness from a few inches to 30 feet. Gypsum rock is fairly soft and it can be scratched with a fingernail. There are many uses for this, for example in plastic and also in food, such as baking powder. However, its uses as a building material and as a craft material are the most well known.

Gypsum plaster is not by any means a modern invention, there is evidence of it being used by the Egyptians in some of the pyramids. In Britain there are indications that shipments of plaster of Paris were being imported in Henry VIII's reign.

By studying the history of plaster and it's development over the years, it allows specialists at Aagaard Hanley to ensure that repairs on old bulidings, such as ceiling roses and cornices, turn out to the best possible standard.

Hello from a PR university student

Hi, my name is Lucy Thornhill and I'm a first year Leeds Metropolitan University student. I am studying public relations and, as part of my course I am spending some time with Bruce Marshall Associates. Presently I am working at Aagaard Hanley where we are setting up its new blog, Crafty Plasterer.

One of my first introductions to blogging was during a lecture with senior lecturer Richard Bailey when he showed us how easy it was to create a post. He created a post regarding a course task which was to get a letter published in a newspaper, I was one of the students who had a letter published the Daily Mail.

Over the next few weeks I hope to add posts to the blog on a regular basis and am looking forward to covering a range of topics from the products to the workshop.