Learn Masonry in Your Spare Time

January 17, 2007 10:32 AM

I'm relatively crafty, but inexperienced and largely ignorant of building construction. What are the best tools to learn masonry, preferably stone masonry, first as a hobby but potentially as a career?

I'm a college grad with a B.S. in writing (seriously), and have made various projects out of steel, wood, plastic, found items etc. I'm really interested in stone masonry, having seen some gorgeous walkways, fireplaces and walls around eden-esque gardens.

I'm a good spatial thinker, but wouldn't know where to begin; searches on Google are useless to me because I have no idea what books/videos/classes are actually helpful for a beginner and which resources will cause me to build a wall that will just fall over and crush my legs.

My step-father worked construction as a teen with his father, so I know I can call him up with small problems, but he is 12 hours away and not fond of computer correspondence.

I suppose I could just start building some mortar-less walls on the weekends and work up from there, but if anyone can suggest a good book, or even TV show ala "This Old House", I'd love to check it out.

I'm a slightly neurotic individual, and any rule-of-thumb formulas (i.e. if wall is x high and y wide bury base z deep) would be a boon to my piece of mind.

(I really didn't know which category best fit this, but I guess "home and garden" will be most likely to draw the experts.)

posted by JeremiahBritt to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

The local community college might be a good start to take a course in Bricklaying. They usually provide materials and tools to play with, allowing you to become familiar with everything needed. Many things you mention like walks and mortarless walls can be built with no basic knowledge. A stringline, level and mallet are about all the basic tools you need for those. Manufacturers make working with those pretty easy.
posted by JJ86 at 11:29 AM on January 17, 2007

I've never built anything out of stone, but the book "The Art of the Stone Mason", by Ian Cramb, was recommended on the Cool Tool website a short while back. Excerpts are available at the link.
posted by Svenny at 12:28 PM on January 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

For something like this, I like to pick a project and then research how to do it. If you own your own home, think of a spot that needs a walkway or wall or a brick barbeque or whatever, and search the internet for instructions on how to do that specific project.

Sometimes doing too general of a search makes it too hard to pick out the best information, but using a very specific project for your search ("pavestone walkway") yields something I can get my arms around.

I am in the finishing stages of a block sidewalk done using that method. The interesting thing is that I sometimes try "short cuts" when the instructions tell me to do something that I don't want to do, and after running into problems with my method, I understand why the directions were written the way they were. In short, learn by doing.
posted by Doohickie at 12:34 PM on January 17, 2007

Oh, and recognize you'll make some mistakes along the way; it's part of the learning process. Your first project does not have to be perfect to be worthwhile.
posted by Doohickie at 12:35 PM on January 17, 2007

Are you thinking of working with only stone or will you be using prefabricated masonry units (like brick or concrete block)? Cut stone or just rubble? Are you going to buy the stone or are you going to just use whatever you find around where you're working?

You should be able to find some decent books around, possibly even at a bookstore. Building Construction Illustrated isn't too bad for a beginner, but it's sketchy enough that you wouldn't really be able to build anything after reading it. It does have general guidelines for most forms of construction, so it has a lot of info on materials other than masonry. I also just searched Amazon for "masonry" and came up with a whole bunch of stuff, but I'm not familiar with any of it so I can't offer any recommendations.

If you really want to know what you're doing, try to sign on with a mason as a laborer, but don't expect to actually lay block for quite a while.
posted by LionIndex at 3:35 PM on January 17, 2007

Masonry can be fatal, as in badly built masonry is just as heavy as well built masonry, when it lands on top of you. Accordingly, follow the recommendations for self-taught masons and build nothing higher than your ankles your first year, nothing higher than your knees through your fifth year, and nothing higher than your waist until you have built for 10 years. Save stuff higher than your head for your sons to build.
posted by paulsc at 3:54 PM on January 17, 2007

You have found The Stone Foundation via Google, no? Sounds like they have a magazine, or maybe attend their national conference? I've learned how to do a lot of things at conferences, and you'd at least meet people who could teach you.
posted by salvia at 7:39 PM on January 17, 2007