Masonry, secrets of.....

tramcar trev

tramcar trev

all manner of mechanical apparatus...
Not that type of masonry but imitation stone kerb and gutter.... I can "aquire" a supply of natural stone "tiles" 20mm X50mm x7mm similar to my stone setts... Only problem is these are square edged and polished on one face and I'd far prefer a more natural or "rumbled' look same same the others.... so my fellow thinkers is it as simple as putting a pile of these into a concrete mixer with a handfull of carbide dust and rumbling them to get the weathered look? Do I use soem water or do I do it dry or do I just suck it and see? just thought I'd ask as the knowledge base here is enourmous.... I'm sure someone can give me a few clues..... Even if Ross tells me to google stone rumbling :rolf::rolf::rolf:
I would use them to form an L cross section with one on edge one flat to replacate the real thing there is still miles of this in Sydney where the city rests on sandstone....
Here is a pic of a pile of stone setts waiting for the master pavior to place them.....

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Not sure about all this, people put stones into tumbling devices to round them off and make them shiny. Possibly with additions loke sand or water additives. Perhaps you could look into the efforts of Craft Type Peoples.

My suggestion would be to just lay them and let the weather do its job, pretty well all things that I have put out have been affected by the weather. Admittedly yousr is somewhat different (are you in Oz or NZ?) but I think that a year outside will make a lot of difference.

Good luck with the continuation of your superb project, very inspirational.
JonD
 
Would acid (mortar cleaner) work? Are you describing kerb and gutter stones Trev?
 
Trev you could try the cement mixer but depending on the type of stone they may take a while (pebbles on the beach arnt made over night) if they are a type of sandstone then youll have more chance ....... can you hire a sandblaster localy or maybe take your tiles to one just to see if thats any better....other than that it maybe doing each one on a grindstone wheel....im liking the look of what your doing though :thumbup:

Tony
 
trammayo said:
Would acid (mortar cleaner) work? Are you describing kerb and gutter stones Trev?
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Acid would eat them they are a coloured marble, an acid rinse would certainly I imagine take the gloss off them, but not round the corners.....Yep I want to make my kerbs and gutters from them.... putting them in a grit blaster may be the big GO
 
Trev, check out the web for "Lapidary" sites, that is the art of polishing stones for jewellry purposes. They sometimes run the stones for several weeks in a tumbler so you should get what you want in a much shorter time. They often use a tumbler made from an old wheel and tyre as the softer inner surface grips the stones and makes them roll better.
 
Throw away your try squares and dividers.... A solution is at hand! It was all a matter of translation my supplier is Italian (very much so) and he did not get the jist of my request so offered me the wrong tiles. Earlier today he came up with these true gems, perfect for the job in fact he gave me a bucket full enough to run 4.5 metres of G scale kerb and gutter @ 66 to the metre.... I'm really really really pleased I don't have to buy these little bits of stone they are horrendously expensive if you wanted them to use in a bathroom reno..... these are fortunatley left overs that I'm putting to good use....
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Will make things easier too, I'll lay the gutters flat with the backs up against a straight edge and allow the glue to set then put in the roadway by screeding in PVA cement render using the rail and the kerbstones which are 3mm lower than the rail so I'll get a useable camber. Then set the kerbs in place against the gutters. In some places though along "Memory Lane" I will be laying the square stones all over and there are only 10,000 of those to the Sq metre :wits::crying: should look good as these are all not perfectly the same size....

I think I will mitre the kerb stones at the corners though. I think they are really the beez kneez and not many garden tramways can boast travertine marble kerb & gutters can they? But then any sane person would find an easier way......
 
Absolutely b####y brilliant Trev! Now all you need is some larger flat ones for the pavement. You could set up a street scene with paviours laying them - tar boiler for the setts, pile of sand, brazier, hut. Sorry, I'm letting my enthusiasm run away .....

Can't wait to see the finished project:thumbup:
 
By the way, a larger square or rounded block would be more correct for the corner (just a thought).
 
trammayo said:
Absolutely b####y brilliant Trev! Now all you need is some larger flat ones for the pavement. You could set up a street scene with paviours laying them - tar boiler for the setts, pile of sand, brazier, hut. Sorry, I'm letting my enthusiasm run away .....

Can't wait to see the finished project:thumbup:
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I sincerely appreciate your enthusiasm.....I like the idea.... just curious what sized brazier would the supervising pavior wear???
Seroiusly that little scenario would add realism. I can get 30mm sq same stuff but maybe that would be too big for G scale paviors to lay? Frankly the 10mm sq ones are going to be mindblowingly tedious to lay...

It has been suggested that I pave my roadway with blocks of timber on end, I don't know it that was done anywhere but Sydney and Melbourne, but I'll take it on advisement and I think I'll macadamaise my roadways.... can you imagine anything mor slippery in the horse and cart era than steel wheels and steel horse shoes on wet endgrain hardwood???
 
love it, devils in the details, and you have him
 
Hi Trev. Yes wood block paving was laid in the UK - slippery isn't the word! I remember Stanningley Bottom, Leeds where, in days of yore, the trams used to change gauge from Leeds 4' 81/2" to Bradford's 4ft (or vice versa). The wood blocks were laid at the side of the road and used as a bus lay-by latterly. They lasted until the early 1970's when a freak flood lifted them:rolf:

30 x30 ain't far off as concrete flags were 2x2, 2x2.5 and 2x3. Sandstone varied in width.

The brazier would only be a single one:rolf:

Oh, and rubber block paving was laid in Leeds on the approach to the goods side of Leeds City Station (silent road to deaden the cart wheel noise for patrons of the adjoining Queen's Hotel.
 
Lignum Vitae was used as a bearing material in marine circles for virtually the entire steam era. In paddle steamers it was used to support the paddle shaft and even as engine bearings, in screw steamers used as the prop shaft bearings..... It was more difficult to use than bronze but it has better wear properties !!!!!! When lubed with water it is as slippery as ice on water.... its an amazing timber I have a small block of it as a curio sitting beside the lump of coal from the bunkers of the Titanic I bought on eBay, I know which one is genuine....
I'll have a look and see what my Italian mate can come up with 30mm/25mm or so sq.... and look for a single brazier for a pavior that's had a partial mastectomy.....
 
Travertine is a depositional limestone, hard and brittle, difficult to work especially if you hit a weak spot. I have used the same tiles previously on a building project but the proportions were wrong and the sizes aren't easy. It's much cheaper to buy the large square tiles and saw them up with an electric tile saw to more useful sizes, but it's an extremely messy job and not to be undertaken lightly. Normal saws will be blunted straight away. Wear heavy gloves and use one or even two push sticks as the tiles tend to ride up the wheel even though it's rotating towards you. The dust-laden cooling water goes everywhere - do it outside in your oldest clothes!
Good luck.
 
And there are still three small areas in Derby where you can see wood blocks laid in the road surface... if you know where to look!
 
Eaglecliff said:
Travertine is a depositional limestone, hard and brittle, difficult to work especially if you hit a weak spot. I have used the same tiles previously on a building project but the proportions were wrong and the sizes aren't easy. It's much cheaper to buy the large square tiles and saw them up with an electric tile saw to more useful sizes, but it's an extremely messy job and not to be undertaken lightly. Normal saws will be blunted straight away. Wear heavy gloves and use one or even two push sticks as the tiles tend to ride up the wheel even though it's rotating towards you. The dust-laden cooling water goes everywhere - do it outside in your oldest clothes!
Good luck.
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I have noticed how brittle it is. But as stone goes its relativley soft. I bought a diamond saw in a $2 shop and tried cutting the tiles with that in my small table saw but I found it cuts easier with a pair of tile nippers and can be sanded on my 12' disk with a carborundum sanding disk quite easily... I do use a mask!!!!!!! Thankfully I'm keeping curved cuts to an absolute minimum and hopefully most cuts can be done with the nippers. Where the area between the tracks is paved there will be a 2.5mm flangeway either side and if that needs neatening up I have my own home made ubeaut jig that fits on my dremel and can clean up with a Carbide tile cutting bit.... Fortunatley this stone is very soft compared with say ceramic and a spray with water helps keep the dust down.
 
I have put down a bit of the cobblestones/setts and the effect is quite realistic. I can see however that I will have to practise restraint as I could overdo it...
Pics in due course. Pardon the pun.....
 
ROSS said:
They used wood blocks set into pitch in the tramways past our house in Cardiff. Everytime a thunderstorm came up in summer, the wood would expand and "explode" over the road....good pickings for the firewood store for winter.:rolf:
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When they got rid of the trams in Sydney and ripped up the rails the wooden block paving which by then had a generous coat of tar on it was sold off as fuel for home heating, my Dad loved it as it came "split" and burnt to a fine ash..... There is still some of it around though in the inner suburbs that surfaces occasionally but is souvenired as soon as its exposed, the block I have came from a street in Balmain...
But one has to wonder who thought of the idea in the first place? I suspect timber was cheap and the stuff they used in Sydney has exactly the same cross section as railway sleepers cut into 6" lengths.....
 
tramcar trev said:
I can see however that I will have to practise restraint as I could overdo it...
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Don't you mean Kerb your enthusiasm .....:rolf:
 
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