by Nancy Bliss Slepicka From Journal - News Thursday July 30th, 2009 Jeff Adams, proprietor of the inBronze Studio, Gallery and Foundry at Mt. Morris, with the rough bronze casting of Lincoln's head and shoulders. After each piece is sanded and polished, the separate parts are welded together and the seams erased. Chemicals are then applied to the metal to achieve the desired coloration, or patina. Journal-News/Nancy Slepicka

Abe is coming together, piece by piece.

In just three weeks, a new sculpture of Abraham Lincoln will be standing on the Hillsboro Plaza across from the Historic Courthouse.

Members of the Lincoln Fund committee drove to Mt. Morris in northern Illinois last week for a tour of the inBronze Foundry, where the life-size statue is being cast into bronze and assembled.

Sculptor John McClarey, of Decatur, and foundry owner Jeff Adams, an accomplished sculptor himself, explained the lengthy "lost wax" process of taking the artist's model and turning it into a metal reproduction.

The visitors saw that Abe's upper body, head and hat had already been cast into a single piece of quarter-inch-thick bronze. Ceramic shells of his torso, arms, legs, satchel and umbrella are being created by dipping separate pieces of molded wax into a huge vat of silica sand slurry.

The unique Lincoln sculpture, titled "Among Friends," will arrive in Hillsboro just a few days prior to the unveiling and dedication ceremony at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 15.

The statue and plaza project, financed by private donations, celebrates the 125th Old Settlers Days and the 200th anniversary year of Lincoln's birth.