ROCKFACING AND SHAPING STONES (Part 4) Mike Haduck 

I'll tell you Mike, seeing all your videos, if I had life to do all over again, I'd be a stone Mason. I learn so much from your videos. Most important few words, are four words that you say in just about all of your videos. "Ain't no big deal". Thanks, Mike, for all of your knowledge. God Bless.

In this age of instant gratification we have lost how to be intimate with what we do. I thank God for people like you that are still around to pass on how to really work stone, wood, steel etc. Bless you

Imagine how easy this was for you 20 and 30 years ago. You make it look effortless. You let the tools do their job. It's amazing how easily you can shape and manipulate stone. Great video as usual 👌 👍🏽 👏🏽

Mike, your videos should be put in a library. I am preparing to do a stone step rebuild, chimney repointing, and foundation parge job, and your videos have been indispensable. No price can be put on the value you have created with keeping this art alive.

Thanks Mike Haddock. I have made a few bucks for my family from what I’ve learned from your videos. Mostly I appreciate your experience and enjoy all the knowledge

You are a valuable resource. The old techniques are not being passed on the knowledge is so important to preserve.

What you showed us was awesome!

I've been doing brick and stone for 15 years and I love your videos, I've had the pleasure to work with old timers who was tought rite

That was pretty interesting. Made me think of some old times 🙂

God bless Mike. The master mason. True class act and craftsman.

I’m inspired by your channel. Started to build a small retaining wall on my property from rocks in the yard. I’ve gathered some from an old farmers wall here. Mostly round rocks. Trying to break and face them not as easy as it looks but I sleep good at the end of the day. Keep making these and keep sharing your old school knowledge. I love it.

Amazing workmanship, the old timers are gone but their work remains perfect

Hi Mike, I am enjoying these cutting / facing videos! I am in the middle of building a colonial style stone kitchen on the back of my house. I harvested several hundred 1800's foundation stones from a old house in the woods to do this project. The stones are roughly 25" x 25" x 9". Moving them around is a real chore but it is more rewarding than a pass to the gym and there is a payback when the job is complete. :) I basically learned how to cut and face by looking at stone work in the Oil City area which is near me. It was conclusive to me that point chisels were used to spaul off a chunk at a time to end up with a flat face. I wish your rock cutting videos would have come out sooner! But is is good to have you confirm I was on the right track!. Thanks for all the work and posting!

Really enjoying all these rock working videos , excellent videos 👍👍👍 👍👍👍👍

Thank you Mr Haduck for another great video!

All these bedroom archeologists! 😂 Great job Mike!!

Man I’d love to have that stone you were showing us on.

I like this channel so much that I forget that I already watched some videos before...here I go again

Mike I llike all your videos glad we have someone who understands the specific problems, i.e.weather, architecture, mine subsidence, etc. we have in our area....having said that, this was a great series, I also happen to think the former first United Presbyterian Church in West Pittston is a great piece of architecture( as is Saint John’s in Pittston) We are very fortunate to have many great examples of stonework in our area, I hope you continue this type of series in the future.

Wahoo that's awesome history some things to learn about it, thanks Mike,

So informative Mike please keep imparting the old knowledge I am all ears. Great to see Pensilvania. Looking forward to the next video 👍

Great vid thanks Mike for your time and information.

thanks Mike, really liked what you showed us here

The word “craftsman” is reserved and earned by few. You are clearly a craftsman Mike. Your content is also exceptional. Thank you

That old rock work lasts forever. Great video, Mike.

Great video Love the history lessons and the scenery. SSo interesting!😊

looks like a great place for Honest Mikes Stone Quarries . Great video Mike very interesting .

Ha ha ha! I work in mining ...I can just imagine walking around the neighbourhood and ducking every time you heard a BOOM!

Thanks Mike for the trip back in time. I could use a lunchbox full of dynamite. 😁

This is a great series. Interesting. Thank you.

Fascinating video Mr. Mike.

This isn’t just about masonry, it’s more about living you’re best life. Do the right thing, appreciate the people that came before you. It’s actually a very big deal!! Thank you! Common sense is very rare now days.

Great video. I love seeing how you square up that stone. Perhaps you would consider making a series on Shaping Fieldstone---I've got access to a lot of fieldstone ("junk"), including significant lumps of siltstone that are seldom planar, and I'd love to see the use of a range of appropriate tools, both hammers and chisels, for shaping some of them into cornerstones.

You are awesome. Thanks for the videos.

Great stuff Mike,thanks I've learned so much from your lessons

Thanks for the little trip back home Mike. Nice to see St Johns church still standing. Use to play in some smaller quarries. Paul

Absolutely an amazing video I learned a lot Thanks Mike !

Love the field trips.

That is a great video. Fine commemoration of the only way it should be done. I walked a lot of stone walls in NH. We used a hammer driven stone drill as drillholes were common property corners as defined by land surveyors then and now. Pins and feathers were commonly used up there for splitting rock. Thanks and good day

As always...great video! Really appreciate your time and effort to share your knowledge and experience.

Very impressive stuff !

Rocks are great and your information is as well. Thank you!

It's great that you travel & see the World, and your beautiful part of the Country. Being in nature & working with beautiful stone! Your yard looks like it has some great inventory.

Love the local field trip videos! I live near Harrisburg and work near the capitol bldg, very interesting to learn about how they went about building it. Very cool.!! Thanks!

Great. Thanks

look forward to seeing you build a castle for your next project mike

Very interesting. Keep em coming.

Always interesting. Thanks

Thank you Mike. Very informative.

Great Great info. Mr. Mike

Very interesting, and it looks like your nearly at 100,000 subs well done :)

That was an awesome video

Mike another great video thanks

txs Mike for sharing

You the msn Mike thanks for the video

“Bedroom archeologists” 😂

Interesting tour. I've been around the old timers in many of the trades and they have been gone for a while.

Thank you Mike 🌼🌼🌼

You are amazing.

Thank you Mike

Spot on mike 😎😎

Thanks,great to see.

Well, this was my favorite video by far. Love to watch you work the stone but lifting that rock I could feel every muscle pulling in my body. I felt like I was helping you move that rock you were facing. Excellent information Mike. Tomorrow, (that's if it's not raining) I'm painting my entire wall with Portland. My neighbor said I should white wash it, or paint each stone different colors. Yeah, that painting of stone different colors doesn't work for me. I'm trying to tone down the rock wall. I have a lot of conglomerate and just junk but still some real nice pieces intermixed. Thanks Mike, loved the quarries.

cool thanks Mike!

wow great chisel

Thanks for making this video... most of what you were talking about I knew from pieces here and there but you going out to the quarry and then to the tunnel and church really sets it in sto... nah heh .. but yes you can see how they squared the stone and its easier to understand how they built... things you would see around a doorway to a church were worked longer and things in the back or the sides maybe not so much... but maybe the stone at the top of the church was smaller because they were climbing ladders with the stone and the unions had a weight limit on how big a stone you could carry up a ladder... anyway.. thanks for putting it all together. :o)

Interesting video. Reminds me of the description of king Solomon building the temple with stones finished at the quarry so that no iron tools would be heard at the site of construction (1 Kings 6:7).

Good video mike

I'd also suspect the use of smaller stones in the upper levels of those churches was to move them up there. The really heavy ones might be moved around ground level with a crane or ramp but way way up? Not so easy. Highly interesting video Mike. Take care and watch our for snakes.

Great video about where stone comes from Mike, the yonkers I work with think stone comes from a flatbed truck. A couple years ago I was luckily able to work on a house built by my great, great, great, great, great grand father in the 1790s. The stone walls were two feet thick. There was a small spring fed lake on the property which was formed from where they quarried the stone.

That stone work on the church is amazing. The stone window sills and roof design are almost artwork. Natural materials seem to make architecture timeless. Maybe that why so many people admire Frank Lloyd Wright designs. Hey Mike, in between videos maybe you should consider writing a book on historical masonry.

Love watching,listening and waiting for the jokes! But I’m not going to be bashing rocks! More likely I’ll be breaking bones!!! Your skill and experience is a BIG DEAL!! keep them coming!!!

This dude's a badass

another great video. i watched your vid on scuba, you could be james bond.

nice video bro

I remember just now i dug that movie Fountain head. Gary Cooper was the stone quarry guy. Boy they had some stuff in that film that would explode the head of any so called social justice warrior. But lets not go there. Love your channel You make stone cutting sexy again. huge man crush here.

spectacular vid again MIKE!!! seems like i've seen them all .... however would be nice to see a vid of how to match mortar for repointing ... certainly not because I have to do something like that sooon .... just out of curiosity

That place is a stone mason's Gold Mine.

Another excellent and inspiring video Mike! Last video I watched you inspired me to repair my front steps (brick). This video inspires me to break up the large stones in my yard that get in my way when mowing. I was thinking of breaking them old school 'Egyptian' like you are showing us but I live in the granite state (NH)! Can I use granite to break granite? Great video sir! I really appreciate how you blend in the history lessons while showing us these techniques.

in the olden days, it was all manual... like lighting the fuse on the dynamite.

12:30 "This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner." Acts ch 4 v 11 That stone needed work from a skilled, experienced, and caring craftsman. You are a good man Mike!!

Mike I was thinking while they were chipping the stones they made gravel that they could probably use for their trucks/ buggies to move around.

Thank you :^)

i live in northern mn. most our rock is rusty iron ore. our water tastes like steel

Those junk stones can out perform any new building material today

I would of loved to have had some of those chisels when I did a lot of stonework. Especially when working with granite. That granite was a beast to work with. I was using an Estwing brick hammer to shape them. Big Mistake, a piece of the hammer splintered off into my finger, and man did it hurt.. I should have used a Vaghn brick hammer, they make their hammers with better steel than Estwing.

👍👍👍👍

No Mike do you have any videos on tip for taking care of your body in masonry? Thanks

Mike, the (re-)pointing on St John's in Pittston looks like it is (primarily portland) cement. I imagine that the original mortar would most likely have been lime. If that's true and if the recent pointing is cement, then why are the stones not wet ? Everywhere I read that cement-over-lime repointing leads to wet stones because of the (relatively) impervious nature of the cement, which makes sense. Could you please clarify what is/is-not going on here ?

What kind of footers did they use for those churches? Maybe solid rock foundations

Mike's New York accent "Yuge"

Hello Mike, I plan to build a small 2-storey country house out of riff-raff stones in my local quarry. Is it at all possible, and if so, why no one else does it?

If you order square stone from the quarry did they dress it to multiple inch dimensions or was it random? If you are trying to make somewhat uniform mortar joints it would be easier if you had somewhat uniform dimensions. Keep up the video work. It is interesting.

you are cool

Hi Mike. I'm in NW Jersey. Been watching your videos for a while, there great, really no BS helpful advice. Could use your advice on a project I'm doing. I built a irregular flagstone ( blue stone) patio around a fire pit that I started using fire brick for the inner part of the pit.All of this sits on 6" of 3/4 crush stone, the flagstone is set in stone dust on top of the stone.The flagstone goes right up to the outside of the fire brick. I want to dry stack flat bluestone pieces of different thicknesses with mortar ( to have a dry stack look but be solid.) on top of the bluestone I already laid down. Is there any problems with doing it this way (the outside of the fire pit on top of the stone floor)? It will have a stone top also where I plan to hand fit and rock face the edges my self. I know it's not actual "dry stack" I'm just not looking to see mortar joints on the sides.What do you think?.

Is that stone sandstone or limestone or something else? Everything I’m finding around me is like a sugar quartz or something and it will not square up very easy.

Mike what is approx. weight of the block you were squaring? How would you say they moved the giant blocks in Lebanon?

The Flintstones

Mike, any idea how the ancient Egyptians cored rock? Type "spiral core ancient egypt" to see what I mean. One continuous spiral machining groove. I don't know of any existing tool that can do that. I'd like your take

People ask me about Peru and Egypt all the time I just tell them they used the stones around them and some good old fashion muscle with a grip it and rip it attitude...they always laugh till I explain a dremel tool then take 1 out and show them how you can put the bit in a arrow shaft and still get the same effect but a little slower..🤣🤣 it blows their mind... Some take more convincing so I tell them my great great great(back 100 generations) grandpa learnt it from the ALIENS..🤣🤣 People underestimate themselves and what we can do when we put down our toys and just think something through..