Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Hand Splitting

Took this video yesterday of a rock I decided would work better if we split it in half, long ways. We needed to take off almost half of the wavy surface off the top so that it could lay flat in the dry stone retaining wall that we are building near Cobourg Ontario this week.

Kurt chiseled along a dark line in the stone running along parallel veins in the granite. The hammer needs to be swung fairly hard. The trick is to keep following closely to the line sending the shock wave from the hammer through the chisel straight down through the stone, and always looking for that hairline crack to appear. When it does, you keep working the spots where the crack hasn't appeared yet.

The sound of the stone beginning to come apart is very satisfying. As soon as you hear that familiar hollow deeper sound happening you know the stone is about to separate. .