A part of Cadillac’s Maple Hill Cemetery is being restored to its original glory with the help of modern technology and a local sporting goods company.
Scott Buckmaster is a self-proclaimed grimkeeper. Grimkeepers take care of the property.
“I’m the grimkeeper here. That’s the way I look at myself. I don’t take people but I do take care of them,” said Buckmaster.
Buckmaster said this spring while doing leaf removal he noticed the urn finials that sit on top of several monoliths in the cemetery were missing.
“Over 100 years, the ground eats it. I’d go around and tap the bases. I found four of them and actually replaced those but there’s a lot of them that are missing,” said Buckmaster.
Buckmaster said he told his boss, Gabe Marine and Marine got the ball rolling.
“He looked at me when I told him and he was like, ‘I’ve got a guy,” said Buckmaster.
That guy was Casey Danford, founder and CEO of Training Mask.
Danford said when they brought in an old urn finial, he knew it was going to be a challenge.
“When they initially brought it in, it had a lot of broken ends. A lot of it was chipped on top. It didn’t have what it was supposed to look like. It didn’t have a lot of the accessories to it,” said Danford.
Danford said they reverse engineered it, making a mold with the help of Training Mask’s 3D printer. He said they also made some adjustments so it would wear better over time.
“What we did is we took some of those parts and we made them a little bit longer outside. So the rain doesn’t run down the middle of that anymore. It runs to the outside of the part,” said Danford.
Danford said this will save the cemetery more than $24,000 by making a mold as opposed to replacing the urn finials individually.
“The benefit of 3D printing. you know, like if that mold ever goes bad or let’s say it just gets a little hole in it or anything like that. What we can do is just reprint that part and free of charge. They put that into the mold itself and they’re back running within 24 hours,” said Danford.
Danford said each mold is good to make between 80 and 100 replicas. Buckmaster said they need to repair about 80 of them.
“Every single one of these is a story. It really is. You know, there’s a family member somewhere that this person meant something to, you know, even the ones that may be nameless,” said Buckmaster.