Karl Zimmer shows a clay model he is making of the head of Saint Norbert at his basement workshop in West Chester, Pa. Zimmer, who had whittled and carved since he was a boy, gained a new interest in his art in retirement and has a special appreciation for religious works.

WEST CHESTER — About 20 years ago, during a trip to the hardware store in Paoli, Karl Zimmer noticed some gardening stakes with a rabbit carved on top.

"I can do better than that," he remembers thinking.

He had whittled and carved since he was a boy. But as he neared retirement, he felt a fresh urge to try his skills. He rummaged for a piece of wood, retrieved and sharpened his chisels, and carved a stake with a squirrel on top.

So satisfying was the endeavor that he kept at it, carving a variety of miniature animals and people.

His current magnificent obsession is taking shape in the basement studio of his house in Hershey's Mill, near West Chester, Chester County. Using measurements from an actual skull, he is attempting to re-create — first in clay, eventually in wood — the head of St. Norbert, a 12th-century church reformer. It's a task that entails both the art of sculpting and the science of facial reconstruction, and is all the more challenging because no likeness of St. Norbert exists.

In 2000, Zimmer, now 87, learned of a woodcarving studio in Ortisei, Italy, a place populated by more than 200 sculptors specializing in religious art. He wrote a letter offering to work for free in exchange for two weeks of instruction.

"It was a thrilling, wonderful experience," Zimmer says of his tutelage under a 35-year-old master. "Instead of wood carving, he taught me sculpting with a mallet and chisel. It changed my life."

Zimmer returned to the workshop for two more sessions and enrolled in two wood-sculpting schools. Among his accomplishments are a relief of the visage of da Vinci and a bust of Beethoven.

His religious creations, however, are the pieces of which he is most proud — and that have most engaged his soul. A lifelong Catholic, Zimmer has sculpted busts of Mary and Mother Teresa, a pair of reliefs depicting St. Augustine, and a replica of a statue of St. Norbert that he saw and photographed at a French abbey.

St. Norbert is the founder of the Norbertine order of priests and brothers, which strives to strike a balance between contemplation and engagement, prayer and pastoral care. Zimmer became aware of the order in 1978, when he attended a baccalaureate service at its Daylesford Abbey in Paoli.

Zimmer, a retired design engineer who worked for 30 years for the Burroughs Corp., so liked what he saw and heard at the abbey that he returned. The sermons were more meaningful and intellectually nutritious than what he was accustomed to at other churches, and he came to admire the Norbertines' mission.

"They teach. They visit hospitals. They work with the sick and poor. They're a very good group," he says.

Zimmer joined the abbey choir and became a Norbertine associate, helping with such duties as ministering to the elderly and infirm and picking up and delivering food for the indigent.

"He's a wonderful associate. Even though he's losing his strength and walks with a cane, he continues to come to every choir practice and every social event," says the Rev. Andrew Ciferni, the prior of Daylesford.

The abbey is adorned with several of Zimmer's sculptures, including the statue of St. Norbert. Born between 1080 and 1085 in Xanten, Germany, St. Norbert devoted himself to prayer and penance. He established a community of priests predicated on his own ideals.

Such was Zimmer's interest in St. Norbert that three years ago he visited St. Norbert Abbey in DePere, Wis., the first community of Norbertines in the United States, founded in 1893. There, Zimmer met the Rev. Donald Noel, a fellow sculptor who amazed him when he showed him a head he had created of St. Norbert. Noel had fashioned the head after traveling to Prague and taking measurements from St. Norbert's skull, which is kept in a sealed reliquary.

"I was very impressed," Zimmer says of the head. "It's the closest likeness we'll ever get of St. Norbert. There are no portraits. Nobody knows what he really looked like."

About a year ago, Zimmer contacted the Wisconsin abbey and asked if he could borrow the head and display it at Daylesford. He was informed that Noel was no longer alive, and that the sculpture was too fragile to make the trip.

Undeterred, Zimmer asked for the skull dimensions the priest had used. The abbey honored that request, sending as well some of Noel's sketches. Employing calipers, Zimmer has spent the last five months transferring those dimensions to a clay model.