Roger Hopkins

[Norman Watts <Norman_Watts@zzzzzzz>]

Hi Gary,

A few days ago you were asking about the book "Stoneworking" by Roger
Hopkins and if it has anything new in it. I bought the book. Hopkins is
an interesting guy. Born in Massachusetts, graduated U. Mass, served in
Vietnam, worked 33 years as a Landscape mason, was involved in the
making of a number of documentaries for PBS (This Old House, Nova) and
the BBC (Horizons, Building the Impossible), and is currently working
as a sculptor in Palm Springs, California.

The book is different than the ones by Liebson or Santamara, say, in
that it is geared towards working with big stone. Besides sections on
hammers and chisels, he talks about the use of heavy duty power tools
(large rotary hammers, ring saws, chain saws, pneumatic cut-off saws,
and stone torches), and ways and means of lifting (tripods, cradle and
basket rigging) and moving (sleds, rollers) large blocks of stone. He
also talks quite a bit about Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, and
his own thoughts and experiments on how they were probably constructed.
This stuff is interesting but maybe not too helpful. Overall, the book
is a bit short of being useful, with large print, wide margins and
large illustrations. Given his extensive experience he could have
written a more informative book.

He is entertaining, however, with some non politically correct comments
about novices (worried about hitting their dainty fingers), academic
types (architects, archeologists out of their depth), the British
(boorishly unfriendly in a polite sort of way), women (throwing like a
girl), organized religion (glib tongued individuals who don't want to
do the heavy lifting of the real world), and so on. He us a fun read,
and you may learn a trick or shortcut, but its not a detailed book
like, say, Grasby's book on letter cutting.

n

Norman Watts, Ph. D.
National Institutes of Health
50 South Drive, Rm. 1509
Bethesda, MD 20892-8025
Phone: (301) 402-3418
Fax: (301) 480-7629