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Thursday, November 10, 2016

Do Overs...

I have corrected my mistake. 

I pulled off all of the old stonework and started over. This time in the right direction.

I thought I would go through it step by step with you. 

It is really pretty simple, once you know the steps.
I cut the flat parts of the theatre trays in strips.

I don't measure.  I just do approximately one inch strips. 

I am going to make the outside of the conservatory match the outside of the music room tower.
 I start at the bottom and work up.  I cut one of the strips in half, lengthwise and used this over the bottom course of stone to make it appear to have a thick base.

I cut the stones as I go, so it is slow going.  That's just the way I prefer to do it. It is the way that real stone masons would do it. That way I get a random look to the courses of stones.

The third and fourth photos show you how I mark the stones to make them match the previous course of stones.
The third photo shows the strip that I just marked and am about to cut.  The cuts for the stones go between the previous rows in most cases.  Once in a while I will make a strange count just to add interest.  Notice the third stone in from the left in the middle course of this last photo.

Now go up and look at the third photo.  The last three stones had to be trimmed and cut.  The first one had to have a jog cut in it to match the step down on the stone below it.  Then a cut on the side that matched the middle of the row below.  Then a short stone to finish the row... The last photo shows how this looks after the course is finished.

I am going to try to get all of the stones in place today.  Tomorrow or the next day I will show you how to give the stones a more realistic shape.  When that is done, I will show you how to paint the stone.  This could take a few days.  Hang in there.

See you tomorrow for the next step...

1 comment:

A. Monterey Blair said...

I've been working on a project using movie trays for stone lately as well. Unfortunately, I keep messing up and redoing things. I think I'm on my 4th or 5th attempt.