Thinking With My Hands

The form used for supporting a dry stone bridge while it is being built can be held in place in a number of ways. Most often tempo...

Of course there are several different types of arches, not just the semi circle arch and the  segmented arch .  At a recent ...

In the example of the segmented arch form I had to make  in the previous post , the segment  length  (span of the bridge ) equaled 12 ...

The design I use to make the form , often called the 'centering'  that goes under a dry stone bridge or arch ( until the stones...

The abutment foundations we built for that first bridge in Port Hope are not the only kind we've used. The foundations describ...

I believe that 'shaping' should differentiated from 'splitting' stone in that it involves breaking a stone across its ...

Before going any further on the story of the bridge we built in Port Hope in 2004 let's talk about splitting,  shaping    and dr...

Less than a year later and with Norman's help we organized the first DSWAC 'pack horse' dry stone bridge building workshop...

Not long after it was built I was taken to see this very old looking dry stone bridge. I am not that old. Nor in fact was the bridge. Th...

Perhaps those of us who love dry-laid stonework and/or build with stone, using  only  stone (no mortar) can better understand what it i...

The arch building went well on Saturday and Sunday in California. The students watched this simple demonstration arch we built and were...

I enjoy coming up with new ideas for workshop projects especially at one place in California that I have taught for the last six years e...

Some of the guys who worked on the tower.  Photo courtesy of Kathryn Gleason Quick lime, red brick dust and coarse sand. T...

Photo courtesy of Kathryn Gleason

Dry Stone Walling Association of Canada .

Mark Ricard waves to the workers on the ground, nearly ten feet below  Patrick McAfee, incorporating a traditional style of s...