Friday, January 20, 2017

Rough Side Out.


As in this illustration, the random shaped/sized granite blocks will be placed carefully on the diagonal and then as you would lay firewood, stacked parallel to each other in the wall creating a random herringbone pattern. This solves many design concerns and allows the showing of only all rough faces. I think this configuration is the best solution for making a strong structural dry stack retaining wall with random sized dimensional stone. 

These 12 to 20 inch long blocks of granite range from 1 inch x 2 1/2  to at least a dozen other dimension combinations, thru 2 x 6 3/4  to  4 x 4 1/4  and up to 7 x 7 1/8 and some even bigger. In some cases the block faces are not even square.

Putting the stones on the diagonal eliminates the inevitable  ugly wavy line created when stones of slightly different heights are placed along side each other in courses. 

Now to solve the problem of fitting the sizes along a pattern so they avoid creating bitty diagonal odd sized 'dead ends' throughout, which would then require a lot of cutting.