Week Eight

The Dollar Bank project is underway, and with a new job has come a whole variety of new skills to learn. Nick had worked ahead on his stone to show us what needed to be done, and it seemed simple enough..... Why does Nick always have to make things look so dang easy! even after working with stone for the last three years I can't get over how stinking hard it is.

We started out by scribing the templates onto the peices. This in itself was a task as even though the stone are supposed to be square, there is usually some part the isn't square at all. At which point, we have to play a game with levels and squares to try and find the best suited side to work from.

Once we've found a suitable side and traced the templates we begin drilling. It's slow going even with the use of hammer drills and it took two days of straight drilling to get finished.

The drilling itself was pretty fun, we'd take much care keeping the large bit level and then do the same to the other side. The goal was to keep the hole so straight that it would meet the opposite hole and make a clean connection (a difficult feat as the bit wanted to wander in the 3ft of stone).

On top of all of this stone removal Nick showed me how to drive the forklift which I have had a blast doing.