Amateur Mason

After the visit from our brick layer on Wednesday I realised that I needed to move fast and get the 4 tonnes of brickie’s fat sand/loam, as well as the 12 bags of off-white cement and 6 bags of lime, to get him started on Monday. I bought the cement and lime on Wednesday afternoon and the sand on Thursday.

I now need to make 7 sandstone window sills by Monday, especially the 2 large ones that need to go under the big arch window, as these are the first course. I had a go at these on Friday. They need to match the ones that I made 30 years ago, when we extended the old school classroom. I haven’t done much stone work for the last 4 or 5 years, since made the stone retaining walls.

All my stone tools were burnt in the fire. I have managed to get around to re-shafting all the picks, hammers, adzes and mattocks, but the chisels and gads remain rusty, even the steel can that they were stored in looks a bit past its prime.

I have started with the most pressing job, and that is the 2 big arch window sills. I managed to buy some stone slab seconds that were designed to be used as steps. They are almost the right length, Close enough. The height is about 20mm too thick, better than being too thin. I can cut them down a little. The width is excellent! Some thing has to be right:)
I can split them down to size. For the first big sills, they only need to be cut in half, but for the smaller windows, they will need to cut into 3.

The sills need to be shaped with a taper on the front edge to allow water to drain off. There also needs to be a decorative edge at each end to match the original stone sills on the house.

2 down and 5 to go. I still have the 2 days of the weekend left before the brickie’s arrive on Monday morning, to get these last sills started, if not completed. I won’t have any spare time once I start as the brickie’s hoddie.