Old School Stone Mason


Dry Stone Walls

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See ALSO: SSRsi's Brick & Stone Working Page

How to Build Your Own Stone Wall We're not stingy about sharing info on building rubble stone masonry walls. Check out our home-made site and let us know what you think.--Jeanne and Lloyd

Seven Reasons to Prefer Stone  Of course, it would be absurd to suggest that any building material or type of structure is "best" for all people under every circumstance, and certainly each one has its own outstanding advantages. Still, we can't help concluding that an owner—built home constructed using "plain old rocks" has more to recommend it—for more people in more building situations—than does a homemade dwelling built with any other material.

Build a stone wall by Charles Sanders Issue #70 The natural beauty of a stone wall has been romanticized in poem and picture for hundreds of years. There is a soothing permanence that can be seen in a well-built stone wall. I have built a couple of simple stone walls over the years and thought I’d share what I have learned about the process of building and working with stone.

Lots of Groundwork Goes into the Best Rock Walls | THIS OLD HOUSE  A good wall begins with a stable base. For the two-and-a-half-foot-high stone retaining wall we built alongside Dick and Sandy Silva's driveway, we dug a four-foot-wide trench 18 inches below grade, where we hit a sandy material with good drainage.

www.masonrymagazine.com EXCELLENT ARTICLES IN THE ARCHIVES!!! Although the vast majority of articles are on brick & block techniques...

We built a Slipform Stone Workshop & Tilt-Up Stone Masonry Questions & Slipform Stone Masonry Questions

Wilderness Cabin of Stone Slipforming a Wilderness Cabin - A work in progress, by Ed Kent See also: Slipform Stone Mansion

Building a Passive Solar Stone House--Part I & Building a Passive Solar Stone House--Part II

Tilt-up Stone Masonry - pouring stone walls flat on the ground and setting them in place with a crane.

How to build a retaining wall project into a rock garden. This project is for the homeowner with small retaining wall problems, lots of rock, and not enough yard space.

Rock Construction Doing rock work is not hard and almost anyone can learn to do a professional-looking job of rock work. If you live where there are plenty of rocks (hopefully free for the picking up), you can use these to build strong, snug and inexpensive structures. 

Irish Stone Walls Patrick McAfee, a consultant and expert stonemason, reveals the history of this ancient tradition and gives illustrated examples of the care and restoration of stone walls of all types.

LAURA LEE ARTICLES - Ancient Precision Stone cutting Sun light strong enough to cut stone? Watkins suggests ancient Inca stonemasons heated and cut stone by using a series of very large gold parabolic reflectors to concentrate and focus solar energy. He points to the Conquistador’s records mentioning an Inca golden dish so large, it spanned the length of two men (it was cut up for poker chips before it was melted into ingots and carried back to Spain); to those big granite bedrock posts at Machu Picchu as possible supports for the mirrors; the fact that Peru, like Egypt gets strong sunlight all year long; and that gold is at its most reflective when its alloyed with silver. (Interesting that some pyramidions, or capstones, found in Egypt were made of electrum, an 80/20 ratio of gold to silver.) Watkin's research led him to develop a solar-powered device for cutting and polishing stone, for which he received a patent, application #4611857.

FIREPLACE .........Details about stone veneer over a fireplace.

Stonework Test .........Yes, a Real Test on Stonework!!!!!!!!

ASHLAR.........Ashlar type of stonework & ASHLAR 2.........Ashlar stonework

RUBBLE.........Rubble type of stonework & RUBBLE 2.........Rubble stonework

CUTTING..........Cutting the Face

TOOLS.........Tools used for stonework

POINTING.........Pointing, getting started & POINTING 2........More on pointing

Not Real...........Working with Manufactured stone

Layout............Some details on retaining walls

SULIS Implementation - Natural Stone Retaining Walls Natural stone walls are retaining walls constructed from cut stone without the use of mortar or other adhesives to hold the wall in place. Instead, the wall is held together by friction and the weight of the stacked stones

Masonry, Stone Masonry and Brick Laying message board from ImproveNet. In these pages, homeowners can find information specifically relating masonry and stone projects. For advice on brick laying, stone work or general masonry, just browse the list of topics posted by homeowners or home improvement professionals to be informed on a variety of information.

Stone Masonry Guardwall: View CADD pdf files - 379k & Standard Specifications (FP-96) & Design and Construction Notes

Dry Stone Wallsdubh ...self-indulgent crap from someone who should know better... Dry Stone Walls I'm talking about walls, specifically dry stone walls. I think that dry stone walls are one of the most charming features of the British countryside. Kind of a travelogue article, but interesting with some good photos.

Rubble Stone Walls Lots of B&W photos. No Text.

Building a Retaining Wall Retaining walls come in two general types: wet or dry. The dry type is constructed without mortar and so, is the easier of the two to build. The main drawbacks to the dry wall are that it should not exceed three feet in height and it is not as stable as the wet wall.

Ancient Egyptian Stoneworking Tools and Methods: Copper slabbing saws Don't sell this article short! It is extensive in providing methods of cutting stone using primitive tools.

Building With Stone and Timbers building with stone, brick, and timber techniques and procedures. Not much here.

Anglo-Saxon and Viking Crafts - StoneworkingStone Working There were about 300 years between the end of the Roman era and the 're-invention' of stone buildings. It wasn't that the concept of erecting stone buildings had been entirely forgotten, just that the size of the task and the problems of dedicated labour to carry off the project were nearly insurmountable. On the continent in France and Germany, people were still putting up stone buildings, and still renovating the old Roman ones. Interesting historical article.

Masonry Construction Magazine OnLine Good, but somewhat technical articles.

Building a Dry Stone Wall Tutorial WARNING! Turn down the volume on your speakers before clicking this link!

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