Yea mate some stones will have fault lines through them that no matter what side or way you break it from it will follow that fault line or sediment line or whatever is wrong with the stone, just gotta crack it and see
Totally agree! I have a book on Stone masons and the author frequently highlighted how masons are often very patient. Or, at least the impatient ones don't last long!
I appreciate that the editor didn't remove the first rock failing to properly split. Sometimes the piece has internal faults that render the piece unusable or make it significantly harder to shape. Most of these shows edit out the failures but I think it's important to show what can sometimes happen so people that are watching the videos for educational purposes and planning to copy the technique at home understand that it can happen and don't get discouraged.
Was digging holes for a deck and had 3 huge rocks in the holes, thought I was screwed since my back yard is fenced in. Was reluctant to try this but figured id give it a shot. 30 bucks for the wedges and had to rent a hammer drill, holy crap it works. A few hours and the rocks were small enough to lift out. Thanks for the video saved me from ripping down my fence for a backhoe. Would definately recomend doing if needed. 😃
As an archaeologist who often marvels at the great stonework of old, this was incredibly fascinating to watch. I also have a ton of respect for those people now. Carbide. Damn. If I'd shown up to a Neolithic settlement with one of those things, I probably could have bought the place with it.
glad you showed the vagaries of cutting stone and discussing it honestly... Most tv shows skip all the inconveniences and only show the great results... Meanwhile the rest of us are still needing the information that 25 years of skill brings to the job... What do you do when a rock breaks badly? Well, he said "cut my losses and get a different stone"... Now I don't feel so bad...
+Ralph Marshall Honestly that was my favorite part of the episode. Most shows would of edited that out and we would of thought this master stone cutter got everything perfect.
I agree. Never thought I would laugh watching someone cut a rock in half. :-P Reminded me of something my Dad would say, except this guy did not cuss. Also liked the "Oh well. Moving on" attitude.
@@brusombear3823 the holes don't go all the way through, even if they did you wouldn't be able to pound the wedges and shims all the way through. Once you get a bad break you just tap the wedges side to side until they loosen up.
Thank you I needed this...I was having a hard time breaking open stones when searching for fossils. Today was SO much easier, I brought back about 5 times as much fossiliferous stone.
I stumbled onto this video- and this is the most interesting video! How fascinating this is! I had no idea it took so much skill- so much talent. I will now APPRECIATE this hard work whenever I see it. Thank you so much for sharing! 😍
Six months later, how do you value the time watching the video? :) I find learning odd things you never even thought of learning to be very very good for your ability to think and especially think critically. That said.. an essay is a one time opportunity.
I'm watching this after spending the last 8 hours drilling through a commercial building brick wall to run electrical service conduit! Nothing like a coring bit to make your day just fly by! LOL!
Stone masons are true artists that can make a beautiful wall that will last for generations. A wall of natural rock in a garden of roses really makes for a beautiful setting.
Damn, that's so cool! I have to build some piers with field and flat stones. Every time I watch videos like these it gets more interesting. And expensive! :)
Need the piers for a cabin. Was going to do something else but my big brother convinced me to do the stone thing. I thought he was nuts. Now I think I was nuts for not thinking about it. So cool, now I can't wait to get started!
Thank You so Much....A Stone Mason Craft is such a needed but gradually forgotten skill....Walls & structures built this way will never be mimic by a drone in my life time....Human learned Skill is so Amazing....
yup, back button shows I am here from spiders and a fly in a vacuum chamber, and before that was high-speed water vapor nucleation video......guess it's just one of those days!
When I am field dressing stone, I cut the bottom 12" of 55gal barrel and with 10" of sand or fines on the bottom and position it on a mud board stand for working at waist height. When dressing the stone you produce spalls you can use as shims when setting the stones in place.
While traveling in India I watched masons carve statues with those exact tools. I was especially impressed by the tool with multiple pointed faces. They used that tool for the final shaping.
Hobby projects work like this: Chill out, cut one stone in half, drink a beer, do the same tomorrow. I had a neighbour who drilled in the walls for 10 minutes after work every day for half a year; he could have rented a good hilti drill and got it done in a weekend, whatever the fuck he was doing; but instead, he had some toy drill and drilled 5 millimetres per day instead.
I worked for the City of Vancouver Sewers Department on a large 25 man construction crew back in the mid-1970s I was a labour and did every job while I was there, I was the pad man and worked with the excavator and the operator while we were digging out the ditch we would on occasion hit a massive bolder .. We would drill our holes using a hundred-pound air hammer drill and we would put in plugs and feathers same as shown here but bigger .and an 8-pound sledgehammer .we split off just enough to dig the ditch .. On ocation, we also called in a blaster ..
Stone changes in its density from soft lime stone to hard marble. They all have their tricks. I saw a lot of stone work in my days and they used the old Egyptian style, They drilled the holes deep enough and then they introduce wood and a steel wedge, They hammer it down tight and then they put water in the hole to wet the wood which will expand and the next day , the stone separates nicely. I would say that if he drilled deep enough in his first stone he would have got it right straight away. t 6:49 I felt that having a heavy chisel and a light hammer meant that the inertia of rest of the chisel was rather high and so the impulse on the stone would be reduced, I prefer to use a light chisel and a heavier hammer so that the impulse will not be absorbed by the inertia of the chisel and I feel that I can have better control on the situation. An interesting activity in hard stone work is to make a flat surface out of an irregular one. What I do is to grind the chisel in an unsymmetrical manner and according to the situation where I need the chisel to dig in or dig out, I rotate the chisel accordingly. When digging in the chisel takes deep lumps off while when digging out it takes surface lumps off. It is all fascinating. They tell me that this technique of unsymmetrical chisel or knife grinding/sharpening is used by right hand or left hand butchers as a left handed butcher needs a left handed knife while a right handed butcher needs a right handed knife, otherwise one cannot cut thin slices of ham !! I just wonder how many people working in kitchens know that?
It's amazing to see the size of the stones used on the pyramids and the quality of the fit. What makes it all the more amazing is that it was all done using the technique you describe without a power tool in sight.
Especially since you have all the coke fiends who look down on stoners. To each their own I say, if they like to party that much that's good for them but I;d rather chill in the sun with a good smoke.
+Jessica Phar It actually does make a cleaner cut, than a saw, as well as faster. A saw will leave very unnatural scratch lines in the face of the stone. Which are not very attractive. And would take hours of polishing to remove the marks from a single stone. If this wasn't the best way to do it, especially in the field. Then they wouldn't still be using this method.
