Hammerhead Stoneworks

I’ve started a new wall just outside of downtown Asheville, at a doctor’s office. A circular drystone wall will surround a maple tree and create a new planting bed. It’s a fun challenge building on this tight a radius. I made a tempalte of the curve out of roofing felt that I use to make sure the stones I am preparing to lay will fit into the circle.

The boys came to visit me the other day.

To get a perfect circle around the tree I rigged up this system of strings, spray paint and a level. The level is tied to the paint wand, ensuring that I keep it plumb as I go around the tree. The trunk isn’t a perfect circle, but it seems that the loop of line I used at that end smoothed out the tree’s contours. I stand back frequently to make sure the wall is staying true and so far it’s been fine.

I just completed a project in Saluda, North Carolina today. The home was built some time in the 70′s and the existing concrete steps were broken down and needed replacing. New stone walkways were in order as well. I built most of the new walkways over the existing sidewalks, dry laid on a pea gravel bed. The image above shows the new steps; the image below shows the area before we got started. Note the awkward spacing of the original steps; it was hard to hit your stride walking them.

The brick pathways wrap around the house, from the formal front entrance (shown above) to the opposite side of the house, which receives most of the traffic.

This short stretch of concrete was poured recently and broke up quite easily under the jackhammer assault. Most of the sidewalks were poured when the house was built and were a pain to break up. They crumbled into dust and would absorb the jackhammer’s impact. It didn’t help that they were up to nine inches thick.

Allie sent a flying space car with me to work this morning. Here Captian Lego attempts to solve the riddle of the Zero Tolerance Wheel.

One of the great joys of getting ready for the Gainesville art project was tooling up. In addition to a wonderland of new blades and grinding wheels, I got another grinder and a tile saw that I can equip with a contour wheel- a cup shaped diamond blade used for cutting radii. And for all the tool sellers I found on-line, the grinder was $20 cheaper from Amazon and offered free shipping.

Templates are essential for efficient production. My friends at Henco Reprographics print these for me. This sheet shows the actual length of the patio and is over fifteen feet long. This sheet is the first of nine big templates I’ll need.

I cut the templates with pattern shears, three blade scissors that remove a thin strip (5/64th of an inch) of paper as they cut. These shears are used for creating templates for making stained glass with lead came. The thin strip of paper is equal to the thickness of the lead, keeping the pattern consistent with the original pattern, also called a cartoon. The thin strip of paper is the width of my joints.

I have rented a temporary shop for this project. It’s the first time I’ve ever had my own shop and I love it. I built a sandbox (filled with pea gravel really) to lay the patio as I cut it. By leveling as I go, I can detail the fits between the stones so that there’s a minimum of fuss and time spent when I venture to Florida to install it. Click the image above to see a larger version.

The first three stones, done and dusty.

This is an idea I floated for center of the landing inside the house, where the zipper walkway terminates. It’s a 24″ by 24″ slab with a six by six square knocked out of the center. That’s a piece of dalle de verre, a super-thick, richly colored stained glass inset into the small square. We’re going to use pebbles instead of the glass, but I liked this mock-up a lot. With a glass like this though, it really needs a light radiating through it, as in this image. I’m afraid that lit from above, it would appear too dull.

I’ve been working my way through a rounded corner, where the zipper walkway meets the driveway, at the big steps. The following images represent three phases of the process. First, I laid out the shape in pebbles and took some pictures. This helps me get a visual sense of what’s going on. Second, I made templates out of roofing felt. The radius is elliptical, and so all of the templating was done freehand. The next phase has me fitting the stones one-by-one. Aa each stone goes in, I revisit the templates, to see if I need to make adjustments.

Today I worked on the landing inside the house. The lighting is poor, hence the blurry image quality, but you can still get a sense of what’s happening in the space. To the front of the image are the big, super-tight steps I laid a while back. To the right is the doorway and the zipper walkway, currently protected by some chipboard. The level hides the cut-out in the center stone, visible at the top of the blog. This section- inside the house- is mortared. I wish it was in gravel, like the walkway outside, but I didn’t want anyone to think I was losing my mind. Really though, it makes great sense. The stones are 2 1/4″ thick and are butted up so close to each other that there’s no risk of movement. And everything has a solid frame around it, preventing the gravel from squishing out.

I left the house Tuesday slightly unprepared. Allie had to stop by and deliver: a sweater, a sweatshirt, long johns, camera, cell phone charger and thirty-five smiles. He liked the gravel in the little boxes.

I am cutting a mouse-hole in this thick slab of Tennessee Crab Orchard for a downspout to pass through. I’m excited because this is the first time I ever busted out the compass to bring to work.

I start by very carefully scribing a line with the grinder. This traces just inside the pencil line and will be my guide, to make sure I don’t cut away more than I need.

I run the big cut-off saw just to get my knockouts started. It’s too small an area to do much else with this saw.

On to the hammer and chisels, mixed with lots of kerfing with the grinder. The opening is going to be 4 1/2″ in diameter, which is the same dimensions as the blade on my grinder. You may be able to see places where I kerfed parallel to the top of the stone, as well as the more obvious up and down cuts. The blade binds quickly when I go parallel, but even shallow cuts help me remove material close to the inside of the opening.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been playing with letter carving and relief sculpting. It’s all brand new to me. For all the times I’ve struck a chisel with a hammer, this is a completely different set of rules. It’s a lot more tap-tap and a lot less thunk-thunk.
The first thing I did was carved a word into a piece of scrap marble, a failed vanity top. Not realizing that the purist letter carver would draft the letters themselves, I borrowed a typeface from my computer. I purchased a marble lettering chisel from Trow and Holden to go with a dummy (lettering mallet) I already had. I watched an on-line documentary about the John Stevens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island. It wasn’t a how-to video exactly, but it showed them at work; it gave me an idea of what I ought to do. I traced the word on with carbon paper and a nail and went to work.

I loved the experience of it. Each movement is important. In the serifs, I got so close to the stone, to see each little grain release and fly away. I have always loved the intense focus that my more sculptural pieces afford, when I’m locked up in goggles, a respirator and ear protection, with some grinder or saw screaming away. It’s a very pure type of isolation. This was much the same, only much quieter, and by my own hand.

I sent that stone to a friend as a gift and have moved onto a new project. A small version of a traditional death’s head, as would appear at the top of an old grave marker. Winged skulls are cool. I acquired a new chisel halfway through this. A book on stone letter carving suggested a brand called Univers, which is apparently only available in the UK. I did find one stateside supplier, John Neal Bookseller, who cater to the calligraphy, bookbinding and lettering arts community. They rule. The new chisel is carbide and it really bites into the stone; it’s way more effective than the soft chisel that I started with, but much easier to make mistakes. One of the great gifts that a career in stone affords me is the opportunity to always be learning.

This shows it just as I am getting started. That’s the lettering chisel from Trow & Holden. I use the carbide scribe to trace the lines to help get a bite.

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.

A couple of weekends ago, I led a workshop at the NC Arboretum on building stone benches. First thing in the morning we studied images of various benches, stone-cutting techniques and ways to move heavy objects safely and with relative ease. Safety was a recurring theme throughout the day. After the classroom presentation, we went outside and built a free-standing bench, a style I call castle-block for the big chunks of stone that make up the supports. The bench we built is now a permanent fixture at the Arboretum, a rest station along one of the trails.

To facilitate ease of movement, we cut the big stone down in the back of my truck. In this image, Ronnie is using a star bit chisel to notch shallow guide holes in the top of the stone. This gives the drill bit a place to sit, reducing the likelihood of the bit bouncing around and scarring the stone.

Everyone got a chance to use the drill and work at cutting stone. Here Judy leans into the drill to get the proper placement.

Since our cut edges were going to be exposed, we took some time to clean up the drill holes. Here Carol is using a handset chisel to knock off the cut edge of the bench stone. We put the cut edge to the back of the bench, less visible to passers-by.

We spent some time doing bench math, designing everything so that it would be the proper height and balanced as a structure and as an aesthetic object. Here Carol measures the thickness of the slab, the starting point for figuring out the math. I handed out the following worksheet to guide the design and layout process.

By cutting it in the back of truck, we made the stone more manageable, but it was still a heavy chunk. Jason uses a rock bar to move the stone from the pallet onto the ramps we have set up. Using 2″ by 12″ pressured treated lumber as ramps, we slid the stone down to waiting blocks and from there into place.

We used mortar to set the bench. This design can be done dry, but the mortar reduces the risk of movement, particularly since the bench is in a public place.

We all felt good as we finished up. The bench looked great and we had built it efficiently and safely. It felt good to be leaving something cool and useful for everyone to enjoy. Tre and Ronnie test drive the bench and pronounce it good.