# 8 A dry stone wall doesn't ...

A dry stone wall doesn't annoy the way concrete does.

# 7 A dry stone wall doesn't...

A dry stone wall doesn't look bad in a garden or in any flower arrangement.

# 6 A dry stone wall doesn't...

A dry stone wall doesn't have to look like Fred Flintstone built it.

# 5 A dry stone wall doesn't...

A dry stone wall doesn't require constant maintenance.

# 4 A dry stone wall doesn't...

A dry stone wall doesn't often take a bad photo.

# 3 A dry stone wall doesn't...

A dry stone wall doesn't blow away

#2 A dry stone wall doesn't...

A dry stone wall doesn't ever go out of style or out of date. 

There is no need to improve on the way these beautiful walls have always been built .
Thankfully, they can NOT be 'modernized' 

A dry stone wall doesn't...

A dry stone wall doesn't stay all that dry when it rains.

Can you imagine the wall?

It's always fun to be working with a good bunch of guys.

Yesterday me and the fellows from Black Rock Landscapes started a forty foot wall .Maybe you cant see it yet but you will.

We are using dolomite limestone from Buckhorn , stratified granite from Minden and local river rock from Haliburton Ontario. I'll post pictures here as we progress. We might even build an arch.

Pooling and terracing

Dry stone terrace work around a pool can make it look a bit more attractive.

The fencing that is required in a pool installation can sometimes be nicely blended in or disguised.

Staying centered

A hula hoop proved useful for keeping the circle shape of a dry stone pillar we are building at the front entrance of this property in Port Hope. 

A centre pole with a string would have done the trick too. The problem is as you build, it ends up getting buried in the structure, and also, you can't lay longer building stones over the centre if there is a pole in the way.

Filling out the form

Eight foot 2x4s are screwed at 14 inch intervals spacing the four ribs apart at 31 inches each .

Three full length 2x6s are screwed to the bottom of the form.  These will sit on the supporting beams that straddle the stream temporarily while the bridge is built. A couple of braces are screwed in place diagonally to stop the form leaning sideways with all the weight of the stones. The form is still quite light. The rest of the wood can be added later.

Ready and loaded on the trailer. 

Delivered to the site.

Good Form

The form ( often called the 'centering') used in supporting the stones for a dry stone bridge (or an arch) while it is being built,  often ends up looking a lot like a large lobster trap.

The one we are building for our latest dry stone foot bridge project will be for an eight foot span.

One sheet of plywood will make two of the four equally spaced curved ribs needed to make an eight foot wide bridge form.

The arc that the voussoirs will travel is in the shape of a segmented arch, 24 inches in height. To get the proper curve, a point 60 inches is determined at a right angle from a line running longways through the middle of the plywood and the curve is drawn using that as the radius.

Don't forget to draw radiating lines at this stage while the plywood is flat, so you have guidelines for determining the angle that each of the voissoirs should be oriented when the form is in place. It is better to draw the lines now than try to guess the angles later. Trying to re-establish the the centre point of the arc (usually somewhere in the centre of the stream)  later is pretty difficult.

A jig saw does the trick for cutting each of the four curves. Go slow and keep the line smooth. Pretend you are in a truck painting the white lines along the side of a curve in a road.

Notches are cut into the two inner ribs for seven 93 inch 2x4 spacers to fit in and then the out side ribs are screwed to the ends. 

You can cut the notches of both sheets of plywood at the same time.

More tomorrow.

Bridge building 101.

This week we started work building a dry stone bridge over a small stream on a large country property .

Apart from a slight glitch with a nearly overturned tandem dump truck, it has been a very satisfying project.  

I hope to report on the progress fairly regularly over the next month.

Yesterday, the below ground work was done using huge random blocks of quarried dolomite 'wall-stone' all hearted with a couple of backhoe bucket-loads of smaller local stone. 

Stewart is our heavy machine operator. He has done an amazing job of excavating and helping us place and fit each of the large chunky foundation rocks.

The stone arched footbridge will be wide enough for a 'Gator' to drive over. ( Certainly wide enough for my crocks. )

We will use a lot of the field stone from the many old hedge rows on the property to do the dry stone ramped approaches, leading up to the two abutments of the bridge. 

Draw bridge

Walling in Haiti

My good friend Akira Inman while visiting Haiti had an opportunity to teach the locals of Fond-de-Blanc how to build a dry stone wall. 

Akira writes..."Many of their land and dirt roads are easily washed away from the typical rainfalls they receive which is equivalent to a down-pour here. Hopefully their new interest and their basic knowledge in DSWs will give them a new option to retaining the soil and roads that would be a lot more structural than dumping stones."

Get your hands on STONEZINE.

stoneZine

Tomas Lipps has very recently put together a marvelous collection of photos and articles dealing with many fascinating areas of stonework in a new online publication called 

--------------------------------------------STONEZINE.--------------------------------------

It is an offshoot from his prestigious Stonexus publication, an impressive quality magazine dealing with a vast number of amazing stone-related subjects.

Dust Ball

Fire-fold Completed

We completed the Fire-fold yesterday at 5 pm on a Friday. We were pleased with the final look. The client was quite pleased too, which is always a nice thing.

It was great to collaborate with Danny Woodward on this one. We both put an equal amount of time into the designing and the building of it.

The pitched-edged triangular fire pit area was a real spark of genius.

Johnny Clasper

Johnny Clasper is a artist/waller from Yorkshire who is doing some very innovative things with stone.

Take some time and look at some of his inspiraling work on his website http://www.johnnyclasper.co.uk/index.html 

and on facebook 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Johnny-clasper-stonemasonsculptor/221045687947093

Swirly Path at the 2012 Harrogate Spring Flower Show