Getting Into and Out of a Jamb

Having my correctly dimensioned orthotope or extruded rectangle prepared, my first step is to remove a good deal of mass. This is accomplished by a chamfer carved across a diagonal line just above the details of the profile. With the chamfer is in place and the surface flat I can connect my applied profiles across the face of the stone giving me a guide to extrude the moulding elements.

The first step in approaching the profile is carving out a series of straight steps, leaving the curvilinear work for last. The step pyramid effect removes mass quickly allowing the approach to the curved surfaces with reduced risk of a blowout.

Finally, very carefully I begin working on the curves, really treating them as a series of straight extrusions, step by step removing small triangular masses of stone along its length until it is safe to clean up along the face.

With just one more concave element to carve, the concave cavetto, and a bit of surface tooling to give a unified pleasing surface the jamb should be complete early next week. Next step if the mantle, a massive complex piece that will likely take me the balance of the semester to complete.

Contributed by Patrick Webb

Making Architecture

"What the mind conceives, the eyes see, we come to truly understand when the hands make"

Contributed by Patrick Webb

Whispers of Lincoln

Dean's eye, Lincoln Cathedral

The past couple of weeks I've begun a secondary project in addition to the Jacobean fire surround. This time I'm assisting one of our seniors in carving a gothic rose window. Very exciting for me as it introduces to me new concepts in carving as extruding profiles in curvilinear fashion and ornamentation.

Professor Simeon Warren did his carving internship at Lincoln cathedral so it was decided to use the rose windows of the north and south transepts, the dean's and bishop's "eye" respectively, as inspiration for the design. Of course our version is far more simplified. Even so, it will measure 5 feet in diametre and weigh several hundred pounds. The finished work will be installed in the oculus window of the historic Trolley Barn, the "new" location of the American College of the Building Arts for the 2016/2017 academic year.

After spending some time in the yard rough cutting the Indiana limestone, I had my two pieces for the window ready to begin. After applying a template, the goal is to square up the three ends the tracery so that the template can be drawn through and applied to the reverse side. Fortunately, we had a lovely visit from post graduate students matriculated in the traditional architecture design studio of Judson University to whom I was able to demonstrate this process. We went out to a local brewery afterwards where the students had tons of questions and expressed their excitement from experiencing the craft of stone carving firsthand.

Whereas I'm just getting started, my senior colleague is much further along. He has two of the tracery pieces completed awaiting ornamentation.

This afternoon, Professor Warren spent some time with us demonstrating techniques for carving ornamentation in limestone. A scrolling floriated vine was decided upon to enrich the cavetto profile of the tracery. Local floral varieties of a four petal dogwood and a five petal jasmine, the South Carolina state flower, were selected. Indiana limestone is a bit "plucky" or coarse grained so we're still working to simplify the details accordingly. Looking forward to truly concentrating on this project in earnest as a senior myself next semester!

Dean Emeritus, Professor Simeon Warren

Contributed by Patrick Webb

Reggae and Rockstone: We're Jammin

Rough block and template

Pretty exciting week all things considered. Perhaps a wee bit too much excitement truth be told. With the plinths completed, work begins on the jambs. After using a grinder to rough out two blocks in the yard I'm left with a piece that will need to be plumbed and flattened on four sides.

Using a steel rule an arbitrary line is drawn along the length of the stone near the edge. The two sides are flattened enough to accurately pull the measurement around the narrow face to complete the line on the other side.

A Tragedy Averted

Blow out below the line

I learned an important lesson regarding pitching. When the stone has a relatively small thickness such as the five inch stone we are using it is best practise not to pitch with the force of the strike into the banker. In my case the impact reverberated back into the stone creating a massive cleaving of the stone that went underneath my surface line.

Too close for comfort

It was hard to tell initially whether my stone would be unusable for the jamb. So first thing I did was walked away for about 20 minutes. Came back, put on some Bob Marley and carved back towards the line until I was confident that the material removed in carving the profile would include the blown out mass. Yah man! No problem, erytin irie!

My comfort with the tools is beginning to manifest itself and I've gotten very adept at creating a flat surface. Professor Warren is now working closely with me on efficiency, the minimum amount of steps it takes to achieve the end result. I'll need those skills to pick up the pace. It is really sinking in how large a fireplace this really is. A lot of carving ahead this semester.

Ready to Rock!

Mission accomplished for the week. My stone is squared up, profile applied and the lines for the chamfer, the first large of mass to be removed, is set up for carving.

Contributed by Patrick Webb