Hammerhead Stoneworks

I’m back to work in the Rock Hill area of South Carolina. I’m facing a grill with eight inches of stone- Arkansas Hackett and Tennessee sandstone. It’s the same mix as the columns I built on this horse farm a few months ago. In this picture you might notice a single piece of limestone (it’s a corner) and a couple of bits of Pennsylvania bluestone; I’m working on a sedimentary theme. I don’t do much facing like this, but I still like to lay everything in the bedded plane- as it was formed in the Earth so long ago.

The next image shows the backside of the grill. The opening will have a pair of wooden doors and be used for storage. The lintel is supported by a steel shelf that’s anchored into the block and concrete structure.

The bottom image shows the face of the grill, from the deck. That jumble of stone in the middle is where the fire will be, after a steel insert is fabricated and installed. The overall design is by Jeff Mills, a gifted craftsman and builder from the area who recruited me to the project. The steel pipes will support a roof structure.

I installed this bench in a Biltmore Forest garden a few weeks ago. The supports are ‘finger’ boulders that I cut down to a suitable length. The seat itself is a step slab, precut by the quarry. It’s exactly four feet long and eighteen inches from front to back. What follows is a brief view of installing such a bench. Unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures showing how I cut the boulders down which was mostly chisel work with some grinding to take off the ugly lumps.

I start by placing the supports. The googly eyes represent the center of the holes, where we start digging. If the orientation of the bench isn’t obvious, it’s a good idea to have a piece of cardboard or paper the same size as the bench slab. A life sized template lets you twist it this way and that, until you find the place the bench wants to be.

Once the holes are dug, I drop the supports in, onto a tamped base of pea gravel. Getting the supports leveled to each other and the tops flat is absolutely crucial. I use a cup wheel on my grinder to level off the tops. This is the most time consuming part of the installation. I had tested the design and assembly in BENCHLAB, but the way the stones relate in the actual installation means this step has to be refined in situ. Happily, I like making dust.

With the supports in place, I pour concrete around their bases. The top surfaces are flat, but I have used the grinder with a diamond blade to score the tops, giving the mortar a place to adhere. There’s about 7-8 inches of stone underground.

The seat slab weighs over 500 pounds. I use a pair of pressure treated 2″ by 12″ boards as a ramp to get the stone from the truck bed to the ground. I make sure it comes down the ramp facing in the right direction, with the top up. Then we just walk it up the ramp.
The first step up is a couple chunks of 4″ by 4″ scrap. Next, we lift it up onto standard 8″ blocks. From there we step up to the 12″ blocks. At each level, we remove the previous step, so there’s one less thing to trip over. It’s a heavy stone, but we’re never lifting it more than four inches and just one end at a time. The 12″ block is close to the full height. I bring a couple of extra bits of board to place under the stone to make sure it’s above the height of the supports. You want to set the slab down on the mortar bed, not slide it across it which risks pushing the mortar off.
Full disclosure, my helper Gary was there to make this install happen. I have done it by myself, but an extra pair of hands really helps.
I put a bed of mortar across the top of the supports and we set the slab on top. To finish it out, I adjust as needed to make sure everything is level, clean up the mortar joints and re-grade the area.

Then, I test the bench.

Yup, works.

I recently visited a walkway I completed in September. It’s still there. I took a couple of pictures, including this one of the flagstone rocket.
The image below links to a larger version. See if you can locate the pebble paws.

Allie tests out the latest design in BENCHLAB, a corner of my yard where I try out bench-making ideas. I loaded this bench on the truck and installed it today. Images of the installation and finished bench to come…

This short stack of sandstone slab steps finished off the J & J wall, which features the time capsule of the previous post.

I like the details of a project, like this time capsule, demonstrated by amateur hand model, me. Removing the ‘plug’ begins with knowing where to find it. I am lucky I know where it is, as it blends into the wall seamlessly. I don’t have a strong memory for particular stones in a project, so I bet in a few months I would have to wiggle a bunch of stones until I found this one.

We used a doggy pill bottle for the time capsule. Once it’s full, a bead of wax will be applied to the seam at the cap, to make sure no moisture can penetrate. As both the homeowners are artists, I expect the time capsule will be filled with tiny works of art.

My contribution to the time capsule? A marble, of course.

I built this wall last week. The original wall was made of something akin to slate or perhaps a phyllite. Whatever it was, it was kinda ugly and none too friendly to work with. I re-used what I could, but much of the new wall is made of locally available granitic gneiss.

I tend to get more web work done in the colder months. I have recently made some changes:
I posted an earlier version of the sustainability essay that appeared in the most recent issue of Stonexus.
I also posted a new Green Target case study, also from this article.
I gave the Artist, Craftsman or Designer essay its own page.
Coming soon: BENCHLAB!

I have built over this area since this photo was taken. The stone that plugs the hole can be removed easily, though from a distance, it appears to be snug in the wall.

The most recent issue of Stonexus, the magazine of the Stone Foundation came out recently. It includes an article I wrote about sustainability in stone work construction. The case study features the Melrose residence.

At the stone yard Thursday, I met a young man named Seth who had started working there recently. As we were walking around the yard talking about the products, he said, “Aren’t you the guy who does everything the old-fashioned way? Like with hammers and chisels?”

I am that guy.

After waiting all summer, the columns finally got their hats. Last Thursday, after a full summer of research, phone calls and waiting, I ventured back down to Rock Hill, South Carolina and put the big cap stones on the columns and walls. We eventually ended up ordering stone directly from the quarry in Hackett, Arkansas. The column caps are single pieces, approximately 33 inches square and four inches thick. We strapped them by the corners and lifted them onto their mortar beds with a skid steer loader. It all went very smoothly, though we did discover that the flatter the stone lay in the rigging, the easier it went into place. Seems obvious as I write it, but in application, it didn’t seem like a couple of degrees would make such an impact on how they skooshed the mortar underneath them. Based on volume, I guess that the stones weighed between 400 and 450 pounds each.

The columns are structural, meaning the stone supports itself; there’s no block, besides the footing. There is a steel armature inside each column. The armature pokes out of each column over the wall. It’s job is to support timbers that complete the design. You can see the ‘fins’ on the left side of this column, with bolt holes already drilled. The armature has no role in the stone structure, but it was incredibly helpful because it gave me a way to suspend strings to keep my corners on target.

The mailbox is my favorite part of the project, mostly because of the challenges it embodies. When we agreed to terms on the project there was an aside about a mailbox. I imagined something small, mounted on the face in some easy way. I certainly didn’t imagine this affront to the internet age. I built a vault around it using quoins or cornerstones, an old school structural approach. I love the immensity, the real stone, real structure feeling it has. There’s no steel or block hiding in there- just stone on stone.

The image below shows the back of the columns on the opposite side of the driveway. Note the other vault, a massive control panel for the automatic gate mechanism. The stone door is held in place by friction. In the spirit of full disclosure, there is a piece of plate steel behind the lintel, supporting the column above.