Pitching, giving credit to Constantine

["Irwin Stone" <irwinstone@zzzzzzzzz>]

To follow up on my last post, I thought it would be appropriate to give
credit to the late Constantine Seferlis for the advice he gifted to me some
25 or more years ago.  I was a fledgling ametuer stonecutter at the time,
trying to do the best I could with the minumum training I had recieved, and
the also limited tools on hand.

I was having a particularly difficult time pitching flat rectangular stock
into various radial cut shapes.  Some peices needed to be cut with any type
of edge, sawn, broken, etc, for flush inground installations.

Many peices needed a nice uniform (proffesional looking) dressed rock face
edge, for applications like treads or wall caps.

I was messing up quite a few stones while attempting to work them with a
regular tracer or straight tip offset hand set.  Constantine happened to
stop by the shop to get a few saw cuts done on some stone he was working,
and was offering advice & encouragement to my plight.
He took my hand set over to the bench grinder & worked on it for a while,
then returned it to me with about a 15 degree angle ground onto the business
end of the tool. "Try it now" he said.  To might surprise & delight, I found
that small angle made a huge difference it how well the chisel cut, and how
much easier it was to control the angle of the break.

He also talked about the virtues of wood handles versus metal handles for
striking hammers, and of how a thinner wood handle worked better than a
thick, stout wood handle.  Something about more vibration transfered to the
chisel, IIRC.

David