Building the Aro Lineage monumental phurba
Preparatory steel work
As the concrete had to rest for 2 days, the working teams started with the necessary preparations for the actual steel work on the phurba. The main jobs in terms of steel work were welding and grinding. Ngakpa Trögyal Dorje and one of Ralzhig Pema Legden’s apprentices, formed the welding team.
First they had to fix the parts for the blades tightly together. All three triangles, roughly even sided, 7 feet on each side, had been pre-folded by a machine and ‘stitched together’ for transport. To fix the blades, point welds were made from the phurba’s point towards the base of the blades. Then the edges were tightly welded from the point up, to one third of the length of the blades.
To provide a solid and secure placement for the monumental Phurba in its concrete base, a steel sheath turned out to be necessary, to take up the tip of the blades. The sheath was welded-to-measure, directly on the phurba using its pointed tip as a model. The steel sheath engulfs the phurba from its tip to a level of 2 feet. This is the depth to which the phurba is seated in its concrete base.
