About 50 years ago I watched a stone mason build a cut field stone wall. He would roll the stone in his hands and start chipping at it. The field stones here in Michigan are igneous rocks without any grain to them. I presume he was just finding the right place to section cut the stone so the joins wouldn’t be too wide. I have been looking for a long time for a book that explains the technique without any success.
I have a lakeshore house to build in Northern Michigan so I thought building a stone wall would be a nice way to spend my retirement before I croak.
If anyone has any knowledge of the technique, for cutting fieldstones I would like to hear from them.
Replies
tom.. if there is no grain.. they won't cut.. at least not with enough ease to make building your wall realistic...
a cut stone wall is more formal than a field stone wall...if you want a cut stone wall .. order cut stone.. which means it will have 6 faces to each one ( more or less square ).. a field stone wall is usually laid as they come with a minimal amount of cutting or breaking...
do you have the stone on your property ? when you wack it with a mason's sledge, does in break with faces to it ?
here's one new england field stone wall...this is a more formal one , the column is laid wet.. but the curved wall connecting to it is laid dry... mostly just using the stone as he found them , with not much additional wacking
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Your photo is what I would call a flagstone wall. What I am referring to is what you say won't cut. But the do here quite often. The stones are granite, feldspar and other igneous rocks. None of them have grains that I can see. They were rounded off by the glaciers that plowed the area 10000 years ago.
The mason I saw seemed to use a mason hammer and chip a ring around the stone and then gave it a whack. It broke off flat. Some of the masons chip off the edges to make a raised center which really looks nice.
I built a elevated stone pier that we use for an outdoor fireplace but I just whacked the rocks with a sledge hammer to break them. Of course the spacing between the stones varies considerably.
I remember the stone mason telling me he was getting $18.00 per hour to build the wall. That was around 1950 to 1952. My dad worked in the Chevy plant at the time for about $1.75/hour. I didn't ask him if that included the rocks. Back then there were piles of rocks in a lot of farmers fields. All you had to do is haul them away.
I worked for a mason laborer for about 6 months between high school and college. One day the mason had to chip a round hole in the side of a vitreous chimney tile. Tile like that like to split along the length. He told me to be very quiet. I was and he hammered a perfect circle through it. We never laid any stone so I never asked him about it. But it is an example of what a good mason can do with a hammer.
Interesting recollections. It's nice to read about first hand experiences (or observations) from people who used to do things the old ways.
I remember an article in FHB a couple of years ago about how to build a field stone wall out on your property (not a wall for a house). Search the magazine index and see if you can find it.
I did a search early today without success. Maybe someone has bought the Taunton book on masonary and can tell me if it is mentioned there. I've already got a library of masonary books trying to find the info.
Maybe I'll take a ride out to where the mason I worked for lives Assuming he is still alive. He was quite a guy. I saw him pick up a mud covered construction wheel barrel by the handle, with one arm and lift it over his head. That's why I remained quiet when he was cutting the hole in the chimney tile.
tom , we get all kinds of stone here.. part of our island used to be part of africa (continental drift).. but mostly the fields are full of Canada... granite boulders.. on top of sedimentary & metamorphic.. glacial till on top of ocean bottom...
i'm not saying you can't cut the stone.. just that it isn't done unless you're working with quarry stone...on the west side of RI there are a lot of Granite walls, structures and buildings... mostly Westerly Granite....
here on the island, evrything is whatever came up with the Spring thaw on the bottom of the plow...
a friend showed me a picture of his Dad's ox team working a boulder extractor... huge wooden structure with an axle on each end bowed up in the middle with a windlass for lifting one ton boulders... then moving them to the walls around the fields..
one of the specs for rip-rap when i was working marine construction was " two-man stone"... about 150 LB. boulder...Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I'm leaving to go "up north" about midnight. If you look at the top of your left hand as being a map of the lower peninsula of Michigan it is at the bottom of the fingernail of the big finger. I'll take some photos of the type of stone we have and the walls they build with it.
I betcha when you talk to any good stone mason, they will tell you how they find a grain in igneous rocks & boulders. That rock was formed by flowing liquid stone a few yrs before my MIL was a little girl. It will therefore have a grain. There are few substances that are isotropic - meaning they have the same properties in every direction. I watched a big crew of stone masons do a very large building w/ a granite face. They seemed to look for directions of grain in the stones they worked. I asked one of them about it, and he confirmed that they did, but did not elaborate.
Will be interesting to hear how this washes out.
DonThe GlassMasterworks - If it scratches, I etch it!
Good stone masons hard to find. Its becoming a lost art. Wish I could find the crew that did this work.
Looks like that one grew there. I'm impressed with the way they got those 3 big ones at the bottom to fit together. Joe H
On the other hand, those columns between the tall windows look a little tall for their width, or a little narrow for their height, whichever way you want to look at it.
If you go back to the original question. "Does anybody know if this skill is documented, anywhere"?
I still don't think the stone masons were looking for a grain in the rock. When they put them in place the spacing was pretty consistant. That would mean they visualized a section cut to fit the space. If you just clobber one of these rocks with a sledge, the pieces will have a flat surface. It doesn't matter where it is hit.
Tom: How far are you from Harbor Springs, MI
I live in Sterling Heights which is nine miles north of detroit. But i have property and a small boathouse where we stay on Scotts Bay of Mullett Lake. So I'm less than an hours drive from Harbor Springs. I always enjoy going up if only for a weekend. The boat was put away last weekend but I go grouse hunting in the fall.
Tom: Thanks for the reply. I get down your way once in a while, I'm a builder and consultant on construction projects. Mullett Lake! My Father grew up on Mullett lake in Aloha. Do you know any Buchanan's. Take care Tom and if you need any help let me know. Regards, Dale
here's a field stone wall about 1/2 mile away from the other one.. this one is all dry laid and no stones were cut... some were dynamited for a road cut , but none were cut just to put in the wall
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Some thing I forgot to mention. After the stones are cut and place in position, a heavy wire which is wrapped around a nail behind the stone is wrapped around the stone to keep it in place. Mortar is used to fill around the stone. After the mortar sets the wires are cut off.
I bought a few masonary book hoping for an explanation of the cutting technique for this type of stone but it probably is a talent restricted to the glacial moraine areas of the country.
search the green building sites or the nature building sites. There is one online store that specializes in older building techniques. (look for sites with books about thatched roofing etc.)
Does not sound like a good way to do it. The cut wires will rust and stain the stone and at worst case cause the mortar to fail (rust expands). My great uncle was a mason in Wisconsin and many of his field stone jobs look like new. No wire, just set the stones with mortar. He also used full stones. My father worked for him for a few summers during college and lifted a lot of stone onto a scaffold. Most was pushed off since they were not the right stone.
A thick stone wall wouldn't use wires but if a wall is being faced with stone like brick, something has to hold it to the building. Bricks have galvanized metal strips nailed to the sheathing and run between the bricks. Today, they probably use stainless steel, but there are a lot of very old buildings that were put up before stainless was invented, that are still in pretty good shape.
cut field stone
someone said there is not a grain to field stone in michigan well there is. i had a business in the early 70's with a friend we were stone cutters. we supplied stone to masonary companies. and did mason work ourselves. field stone has a grain just like wood has a grain. you have to figure out which way the grain runs to split it. if you just smack a stone with a sledge hammer it will break if you hit it enough. but to cut it is another thing. that is done with a stone axe. if you are building a wall you have to face both sides if it is free standing. if not you wil have a very nasty look on the inside of it and a finished side on the outside. if it is put against a wall of a house you will have to use wire to temporarily hold it till the mortar dries. either way a stone wall is a slow process to build. it is not like brick or block that can be done quickly. and when laying a stone wall you have to look at the colors of the stone you have to make sure you don't have 2 of the the same color to close together.if the job is done right it will last over a 100 years if it is good with not much upkeep. on occasions you might have to have it washed with a mixture of water and muratic acid to restore the color to original. that is because of dirt, dust, winter weather and the amount of iron content in the stones may cause rust streaks. you also have to find someone who knows what they are doing or learn as you go. but it is a beautiful thing when done especially if you do it yourself you have the pride in your workmanship that you can show off for a long time.and watch the size ofthe gaps between the stones . some spaces will have to be filled with what would be like a chip to make it look like it is all stone and not a mortar wall with stone stuck in. i hope i have given you some helpful info. and enjoy it either way you decide to go with the job.