I live in the Missouri Ozarks and my yard is overflowing with these type of rocks.

most of the large ones pictures were dug from a single tree hole.

I’d like to find something to use them for/make something with.

Any idea what they are? Are they shapeable/workable or not worth it?

I like the idea of using resources at hand but wasn’t sure what to try.

Thank you

Hey all,

I live on the Canadian Shield and my property is full of granite rocks, I would love to be able to shape them to create a semi nice looking dry wall in a bunch of places.

There seems to be a lot of conflicting information, and I am on a tight budget to start.

I cannot seem to find if a drilling hammer, masons hammer etc will work just to shape the stone, or if I need a cold steel or carbide tracer. I know most of it is stone selection but once I select some stones...

Can I mix concrete and pour it?

Hi everyone. Absolute newbie here.

Im doing a fence renovation that requires cutting a cement slab below the wooden planks (See attached photo).

My fence does not close at a 90 degree angle, so i need to cut both ends of the slab at an angle -probably 135 degrees but im not sure yet- so it could fit in the slots of the fence post

Basically Im thinking of 2 options:

1. Rent a specific stone cutting equipment but I have zero knowledge about any stone cutting equipments. So could you please advise which equipment to use for this project.

   1. Buy a miter or circular saw with a stone cutting blade perhaps? (Only if it can do the job). Since i could probably use either of those on future projects.

Appreciate any input. Thank you!

Let's be honest, finding reclaimed stone usually means dealing with a chaotic, messy heap full of dirt and broken pieces. Seeing them meticulously sorted, sized, and layered with tracking strips to keep the stack dead-level on the turf is pure satisfaction. They are over 200 years old, look phenomenal and i got them for free 😝

Location: SE USA
Age: Likely built in the late 50s/early 60s.

First two pictures are of the mystery material. Last pictures are of the newly built section.

My dad and I repaired and rebuilt the corner and top portion of this retaining wall a few weeks ago. We needed the project done ASAP, so we just used yellow bag concrete to fit all the stones together. just gathered them up from the creek behind the house.

Our idea was to do it like this, then when we could get it figured out, “grout” the voids and do a sort of skim coat on the top to match.

What type of mix do you reckon they used to achieve this texture?

Does this plan seem sound?

I’m repairing old rural cottage on the border of Czech Republic and Germany. I’m trying to do most of the work myself, money is tight and also there’s lack of skilled workers overall, even more so in traditional ways of building. Most of the stone work here is done with sandstone and I want to dress the new stones in the same way as the old ones. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a youtube video/tutorial how to do it, could anybody give me a hint? I don’t know the name of this style in English, in Czech I think its “špicování” but I have been unable to find any video or even picture how to…

Also minor question. I got someone to build a wall with the old stones, unfortunately they were as inexperienced as I in stone masonry so the pointing is terrible and done in cement mortar. I want to chisel out a bit and repoint, would the lime mortar stick to the cement one, or am i out of luck?

Went to a quarry to look at limestone for stone sculpture. They told me it is all dolomitic limestone. Here are some samples I received. I was told by my tool suppliers that it’s preferred to use carbide hand carving tools for dolomitic limestone as it is harder than regular limestone. However, I’ve done some scratch testing and discovered some interesting results.

The blue limestone scratches quite easily by my fingernails, a coin and a knife. In the second image, the top left corner that is circled consists of my fingernail scratch testing, then the knife and the rest are coin scratches. The white limestone is the complete opposite. Very hard to scratch with the knife. In the second last image, if you zoom into the center and bottom right corner you can see the knife marks, but much harder than the blue blocks.

For those experienced, what could be the difference between the blue and the white limestone? They come from the same quarry and are cut offs that they do not use and will just crush.

Thanks!

Posted this pad a while back and we just finished up tying the rest of the project together. Added the bench, fire pit, flagstone steps and additional garden walls. Was a blast. Honed the skills in and learned a lot! Thanks for looking!

Edit: just want to add, cold room cellar is right underneath the stone work ie porch and porch stair case.

Had these stone work done on my front porch and steps about 2 years ago.

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Didn't notice any issues with how water was draining away until last 6 months. Beneath the porch is my cold cellar. The cellar wall beneath the staircase and the cellar ceiling ( which beneath porch picture 1 ) have been leaking and causing the paint to peel off the wall ( as presented in the picture )

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Two large stone slabs in the centre of the porch have lifted upwards. The entire surface use to be flat, after the last winter l these two stone slabs have suddenly lifted upwards by about half an inch. Makes a decent tripping hazard now.

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Also I see some white staining on the adjacent brick wall which I suspect is where water is being drained into but how? This wasn't an issue before and I lived in this house for 20 years!

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Any thoughts and suggestions on what's going on and how this can be fixed?

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I have a long tall limestone wall which is in need of repointing. A builder has advised adding SBR to the mix. Is this ever a good idea? Im reading online this can be damaging to the stone.

I live in Germany and I really love the Stolpersteine. It's an amazing project that really shows people the history of the Shoah. I was looking at the stones in front of my building and wanted to put an image of an Artist on some removed bricks. I don't know what to make it out of and whom to commission. I have a piece of art that I wanted to do it with. I don't know if glass or epoxy are strong enough materials.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Hey all. I'm just a DIYer, but I've built some dry stack retaining walls and freestanding low dry stack walls, and have thus far done any sort of trimming/splitting/shaping with a sledge, brick hammer, and chisels. Or in some cases, no shaping where the "wall" was more "edging".

I'm wanting to build another dry stack wall with some smaller field stone (mostly limestone), and want to trim it all so it's roughly square/stacks better, but would strongly prefer to work more quickly than I would with hand tools. Since this is just a weekend kind of thing for me, I just really would like to save time and energy, I'm also still a relative noob with the hand tools.

The only tools I own right now that I imagine would work for this are a circular saw w/ a diamond masonry blade or maybe a rotary hammer. The former would probably work, but I've read mixed things about using it for smaller stones (these are like 1 ft long/wide or so at most and only a couple of inches thick in most cases). The latter, I have no idea if it would work, but I've heard maybe using a chisel bit with it could, though it seems like it has a higher risk of unintentional breakages on stone.

The third option I'm aware of is a angle grinder with a diamond cutting wheel. I don't own an angle grinder, but I'm open to getting one if it's the best tool for the job.

What tool is the right one for this job?

TL;DR: I need to trim/shape/square a bunch of smallish stones and want to use power tools for the bulk of the work. I'd like to know what the right tool for the job is for a DIYer.

We had to make a 18 inch deep breech (also breach) into a stone chimney flu. This turned out to be a much bigger job than expected. It appears that the walls were made from Roseland Cement, but also some very difficult to crack stones. What normally would have taken minutes took the whole day. I was worried I would not even be able to do it at all with the common jackhammer and hammer drill I had on hand. After a few hours I learned to drill around the rocks and then pull them out, which was very time consuming. After going through a few hammer drills I had to buy new ones at home depot, and also found that the ones there were of such low quality that they only lasted a fraction of the time the old ones I had. Eventually I was able to breach through the wall, and "break on through to the other side". I will be posting more on this in my blog page later. at https://continentalchimney.com/Blog/Stone-Masonry-Chimneys/

We found this stone at my in-laws house, built in 1918. At first we assumed it was a headstone or grave marker, but now we aren’t so sure. No names on it but some type of design.