Saturday 27 April 2013

Topping out

I've been building a wall to keep the cows out. This bit is in local stone - schist - because it butts up against the end of the farmhouse and I thought it would look better than the wooden fence I plan to have elsewhere.

It's been going up slowly for the last fortnight, as I have been using a lime-only mortar (NHL 3.5) that takes a day or two to harden, so it's easiest to build it up a couple of inches, then let it harden properly before adding any more stones. We've had some sunny days so I have had to put wet sacking on top to prevent it drying too quickly.

The last stones, to top it off, are very heavy. The lightest one I managed to get up to the top of the wall unaided. The next one I had Tony to help with (our combined ages - 140 years or a little more). The last was the heaviest of the lot, and it had to go into a corner where it would be difficult for two people to handle it.

So out with the Black and Decker Workmates and a length of alloy scaffolding:

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I didn't think of taking pictures immediately: I started with the scaffold board virtually on the ground, and made sure that the stone was slid to one end before lifting the other: first to the footstep on the righthand Workmate, then to the crossbar, lifting the other end appropriately in between. Thank you, Archimedes.

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Up at this level it was all a little wobbly: mostly because the ground here slopes in two directions. I had moved the stone fully onto the righthand Workmate before moving the lefthand one in and up.

Here it is about to be slid onto the wall:

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And this last picture shows it in its final place. Not mortared in, of course, as it is pouring with rain today and the mortar would just wash out.

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It fitted into the gap I had left with a millimetre to spare. Now I just have to level it and get some mortar underneath, and the wall will be done. Though I may decide to grout the joints a bit more to get a smoother result.

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