At A Glance:
KEES produced a custom welding table with a built-in industrial hood to serve as a brazing station for the Frick Collection’s new Sherman Fairchild Center for Art Conservation.
The station’s table features a unique grid to hold eighteen 9” x 4” fire bricks, an ideal surface for brazing and soldering work.
Opened in 2026, the conservation studio serves as a world-class space for the treatment, preservation, and study of sculpture and decorative art.
Introduction
When the Frick Collection was outfitting their new art conservation center, they turned to KEES, a manufacturer that specializes in custom ventilation solutions, to produce a unique brazing station to treat the museum’s sculpture and decorative art collection.
An internationally recognized art institution, the New York City-based Frick Collection is known for its selection of Old Master paintings and European sculpture and decorative arts. As part of a historic renovation project—the first in the museum’s ninety year history—the Frick built the Sherman Fairchild Center for Art Conservation to preserve the thousands of three-dimensional works of art in its permanent collection. For the Center, KEES was contracted to produce a ventilated work station for brazing and soldering.
Project Requirements
For the Frick’s conservation center, KEES was engaged to build a customized work station designed for brazing and soldering in service of sculpture and decorative art repair. Manufactured out of 18-gauge galvanized steel, the station featured a built-in slotted backshelf hood to capture particles and fumes created by the brazing process and a 30 ”x 33” welding table surface with a grid to fit eighteen 9” x 4” fire bricks. Fire bricks possess exceptional heat-absorbing properties, making them an ideal surface for brazing and soldering work.
The Sherman Fairchild Center for Art Conservation opened in 2026 and now serves as a world-class studio for treating, preserving, and studying the Frick Collection’s treasured works of sculpture and decorative art.
Why KEES
At KEES, custom is our expertise. Thanks to our flexible production environment and years of experience delivering custom solutions, we’re able to take on highly specific client work and meet exact project specifications.
For this project, KEES worked with the Frick Collection to transform our welding table product into a unique piece of infrastructure for its specialized art conservation center. When the space allotted to the brazing station ended up being tighter than planned, KEES quickly designed and built a new station to fit.
Ensure precision for welding and metal fabrication with KEES highly customizable welding tables. There are no limits to size—we’ll build the table and its industrial hood to meet any dimensional or airflow requirements.
