Modern Stonemasonry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is discussing the modern Stonemasons and the modern techniques they use every day in their occupation. It’s not a general discussion of the occupation’s history or a general synopsis of what they do, but rather how they do it.
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[edit] What Is A Stonemason?
Many Stonemasons get rather frustrated because people mistaken their work as things other that authentic stone.
Today, there is a large market of cultured-stonemasons. These sorts of Masons do similar work as normal Stonemasons but there is no need for chisels and many other tools. Seeing as the stone that they use isn’t even stone at all. The material they use is essentially slabs of cinderblock with a thin two eighths of an inch crust that has a similar look as a real stone. These slabs are light and usually deteriorate within a decade or two (in which time the thin crust that looks like a stone flakes off and the cinderblock interior becomes visually exposed and looks hideous). Not only is it limited in its durability against the weather and time, but it’s limited in many other aspects which makes it a rather simple occupation to fall into (in comparison to real Stonemasonry). Should someone want a six inch thick stone as a mantle or hearth for a fireplace, cultured stone is the wrong direction to go. But the primary reason why they stay in business is because the cost of applying the cultured stone is dramatically less.
Stonemasonry is also often confused as Tile – especially when it’s done in flatwork or the pattern is rather repetitive/flat/or just high quality. Although tile setters use cement, it can’t be considered any form of masonry because it’s not really mortar. There’s too much plastics in the cement and man-made material in the products they use in order for it to be considered any form of Masonry.
Further complications between Cultured stone work and Stonemasonry is that many people are under the impression that stones shouldn’t be any larger than 2’X 2’ in size. This is because cultured stone is assembled and industrialized by man-made means. There is a limit to the size the stones can be… where as Stonemasonry can utilize essentially any stone that’s shapeable to what the stonemason wants or needs.
Stonemasonry is simply applying authentic and natural stone and applying it with mortar to create a wall or floor – or applied ONTO a wall.
[edit] Tools
[edit] Chisels
Stonemasons are famous for the use of Chisels. Many people think that Chisels are no longer used in this occupation – but that’s primarily because it’s mistaken with cultured stone.
Despite the confusion, chisels ARE used today. Some stonemasons rely on steel chisels, but these types have a knack for not lasting very long – seeing as an inch of the tip is tempered to handle the pounding stresses and needs to be sharpened often – making the chisels difficult to work with, therefore the most effective chisels a Stonemason can use is carbide tipped chisels.
The tip of a chisel can vary from length. The thinner a chisel is, the more useful it is in fine tuning small details. The longer it is, the better it is at clearing out large portions of the stone that need to be knocked off.
The stock of a chisel can also be rather helpful and vary in uses. The stock is essentially the handle of the chisel. The thicker it is, obviously, the heavier it is. This makes it so that it can increase the pounding thrust against the stone without having the stone mason tire himself with a thinner stock. However, a thicker stock isn’t always a good thing. When fine tuning or working with a delicate stone with a fault running through it – using a thick stocked chisel tends to split the stone in ways that the Stonemason doesn’t desire and render the stone completely useless.
[edit] Buckets
Stonemasons tend to need buckets all the time. They COULD purchase them for $5.00 each at a local store, or they could steal some from stucco workers who are going to discard the buckets anyways, or they dumpster-dive in construction dumpsters. (Keep in mind that these dumpsters are not as riddled with filth as the typical trashcan. These dumpsters are utilized for discarding construction materials such as framing wood, sheetrock, broken glass, or buckets, and etc. So it’s better to consider it far more dangerous rather than disgusting.)
A Stonemason never knows when he’ll need a bucket. They hold tools. They carry cement, they serve as a decent system of measuring (like a measuring cup when cooking) when mixing cement. They can be used to store garbage and are easily carried to a dumpster to discard the excrement stone chips. They store water when needing to sponge joints in flatwork or small cement splatters in places that were accidental.
The uses of a bucket are never ending, and although a Stonemason CAN have too many buckets, they tend to always be running a little low.
[edit] Wet saw and Grinder
Although it’s tempting to tell what grinder and wet saw brands are the best, it’s best to leave it for people to discover it all on their own.
These two tools are used constantly by the MODERN Stonemason and are a very big timesaver.
It’s best when a Stonemason purchases these two tools in their own individual carrying cases rather than storing them in buckets because buckets tend to be abused and as does any sort of hardware related tool such as these.
These tools are obviously used to cut into the stone and have their variously different uses.
The grinder is a very effective tool in cutting hard to reach areas. They’re typically small and easy to aim the blade in rather uncomfortable positions. The only down side is that if you need to cut any deeper than a quarter inch into most stones the blade will heat up, which will cause the diamond blade to suffer more wear and tear in a shorter time period. The blade wont be able to go much deeper very quickly and it will also cause the grinder to work extra harder and cause more wear and tear on the engine. The only way to prevent this from happening is to squirt water onto the blade, however – this can cause problems – especially if you’re trying to cut in those tough to reach areas because one hand is busy squirting water onto the blade and the other is trying to stabilize the grinder and cut into the blade, making it an uncomfortable process. Also, depending on the angle the Stonemason is cutting, water might be flung into his or her face – but if it’s not water, it would be dust.
Some Stonemasons rig their grinder to have features like a wet saw when those features are needed so that the grinder can be stabilized and most of the problems with water on the blade disappear, but there is still the added irritation of: when the blade begins to wear down, it’s difficult to even cut a quarter inch into the stone.
Wet Saws are very useful. Now when I say WET SAW – I don’t mean a tile setters table set up. I’m talking about a traditional saw that has a diamond blade and has a water siphon feature added onto it. (Some stonemasons purchase a water pump commonly used in fish tanks in order to avoid the use of water siphons).
The good thing about Wet Saws is that they’re able to cut very deep into the stone. They usually don’t scatter dust because the grit kicked up with the blade is caught with the water, so the health hazards of breathing dust all day goes down. They are best used when working indoors because of this feature, but usually the work area where the Stonemason is working usually needs to be blocked off so that the dirty water doesn’t fly onto the drywall or ruin paint.
The downside to Wet saws is that they tend to be quite clunky and cumbersome. They can’t be put into tight places and are hard to aim the blade in the right place when trying to be used in that fashion.
[edit] Diamond Blades
Diamond blades are very needed in the MODERN stonemason’s bucket of tools.
There are many different sorts of blades. There are the types that are just a solid circle, these are best used for tile setters or with wet saws. These solid circle blades tend to heat up and degrade faster without the water. But when they’re used with water, they have consistent contact with the stone, causing it to cut rather smoothly and won’t heat up quite as much, but they do need a rest from time to time.
There are specific brands that typically last up to several months, but Wikipedia doesn’t cover commercial material.
There are diamond blades that are separated into different segmented fingers (still round) and go well with both, a grinder and a wet saw. With the grinder, the finger separation makes it so that air flows through the blade better and prevents it from heating up. And they have the shared benefit on the grinder and wet saw for having a serrated cutting ability. This usually makes the cutting much faster, but on a wet saw it causes there to be a little more bouncing of the blade which causes more wear and tear on the blade – but the speed increase usually makes up for the wear and tear by how much square footage is complete.
There are diamond blades that are rather thick, but some Stonemasons (especially in Southern Utah) that are good enough to cut the stones so well that the joints are typically rather close together… sometimes TOO close together, so they purchase a grinder blade that’s a quarter of an inch thick and use that the cut out the joints before they vacuum the joints out and then grout them.
[edit] Square
You might get the mental picture of a SQUARE but it’s actually an “L” shaped tool made of metal. This “L” is a ninety degree angle which assists as a good tool to when matching rectangular stones together/putting a stone against the floor and a wall (by placing the square onto the stone and marking with a construction pencil to mark the two ninety degree angle intersecting lines and then cutting onto those markings).
