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A good variety of stone at July’s Intro to Stone Shaping

You came to try your hand at shaping stones with hammers, chisels, and power tools. You learned techniques and methods for efficiently getting stones to break where you want them too. A good introduction to stone shaping!

There’s so much to know. Are you working with level bedded (sandstone or slate) or irregular stone (granite or basalt)? Do you want to split, dress, bend, or trim the stone you’ve chosen for your building purpose? Or do you need to remove a high spot?

The photos show you working with granite using chisels and hammers. Drill marks make it clear that you also used feathers and wedges. We heard that you had a good variety of stone at your workshop. Most of you went home confident that you can build on the knowledge you acquired.

You also took home Basic Techniques for Shaping Stone by Hand to guide your future learning. Brian Post’s article reviews how to read a stone. He tells us it’s all about angles. He gives us rules of thumb and reminders about keeping ourselves, our tools, and other people safe.

For more help as you continue to practice, here are links to the stone shaping information currently available on the Stone Trust blog:

You may also want to look at some of the Master Class posts. A couple of them address working with slate.

Thanks very much for coming to learn this fundamental dry stone walling skill! The more you know, the more you help preserve and advance the art and craft of dry stone walling. We appreciate that!

Thanks, too, to Robert Faraone, Andras Lazar, and Pete Ryder for bringing their deep experience to this workshop. (Special thanks to Andras for stepping in at the last minute; a scheduled instructor needed to self-isolate so as not to spread COVID.)

May your dry stone projects bring you great satisfaction!

You came to try your hand at shaping stones with hammers, chisels, and power tools. You learned techniques and methods for efficiently getting stones to break where you want them too. A good introduction to stone shaping!

There’s so much to know. Are you working with level bedded (sandstone or slate) or irregular stone (granite or basalt)? Do you want to split, dress, bend, or trim the stone you’ve chosen for your building purpose? Or do you need to remove a high spot?

The photos show you working with granite using chisels and hammers. Drill marks make it clear that you also used feathers and wedges. We heard that you had a good variety of stone at your workshop. Most of you went home confident that you can build on the knowledge you acquired.

You also took home Basic Techniques for Shaping Stone by Hand to guide your future learning. Brian Post’s article reviews how to read a stone. He tells us it’s all about angles. He gives us rules of thumb and reminders about keeping ourselves, our tools, and other people safe.

For more help as you continue to practice, here are links to the stone shaping information currently available on the Stone Trust blog:

You may also want to look at some of the Master Class posts. A couple of them address working with slate.

Thanks very much for coming to learn this fundamental dry stone walling skill! The more you know, the more you help preserve and advance the art and craft of dry stone walling. We appreciate that!

Thanks, too, to Robert Faraone, Andras Lazar, and Pete Ryder for bringing their deep experience to this workshop. (Special thanks to Andras for stepping in at the last minute; a scheduled instructor needed to self-isolate so as not to spread COVID.)

May your dry stone projects bring you great satisfaction!