Hammer for pitching

["daedelus lanthanien" <daedeluslanthanien@zzzzzzzzzzz>]

Hello Daed,

Thank you and Irwin Stone for the response.  The stone I am working is 37"h
x 22"w x 15"d.  I am just trying to knock off the corners.  My final figure
is 34"h x 16"w x 11"d.  So I need to knock off 2-3 inches of each edge.

If tracing means creating a cut line on the surface for the handset to
follow - then I am doing that.  I am basically following the technique on
the Trow & Holden video.  I gather from your comments that 2" might be too
much to try and pitch.  It appears from the T&H video he takes off even
more?

I am going to order a 3lb hammer and try to pitch less going forward.  If
that fails I can always go back to my diamond blade.

Regards,
John Halter
halter@----------

Holy smokes! Those are some deep cuts. I guess if I had to dimension this
stone by hand I would hit it really hard with my tracer and clean up with my
pointer. Your starting dimension lacks the pitch required to dress this
deeply and keep the cut plumb. The Trow and Holden video is correct and
dressing these dimensions requires alot of pitch. You really have to send
the stress as deep as you can squarely working with your dimensional
constraints if you want to minimise your pointing work removing a large
bullnose, thats why I would go with the tracer. Using a set in this instance
of dimension may be counter productive when you want plumb cuts and are not
concerned about the finish. The angle in the cutting face of set chisels
lends itself to producing fine bullnose dressing on large stones. I find
that the set reflects out of the pitch a little quicker than a tracer. A set
will give some pretty plumb dressing when your working on sills and wall
stone 2" - 8" but this changes drastically as you go for the deeper cuts as
your doing. Either way, if you try this, you will most likely do alot of
pointing.

I seen a letter concerning splitting granite, how fun! I know Trow & Holden
has a set of hammers that it offers for doing this manually. One Strikes and
one cuts, it's a 2 person operation. Try to get granite hardheads freshly
dug up and green, they pop easier filled with moisture. Some old timers I
know told me they liked to throw them in a fire for awhile and then roll the
heated granite into a shallow pond. A few companies make really slick
hydrualic splitters. If you have enough granite, a good market, and enough
cash to buy one you could make quite a few bucks.

daed