Living Stone Walling – Building a stone arch bridge without mortar
An evening pause: The ancient methods still work, and in fact work better with modern equipment.
Enjoy your weekend.
Hat tip Cotour.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Beautiful and skilled work. Quite impressive.
I would have liked to see how they smoothed over the interior – between the walls – leading up to the cobblestone. But maybe I can find an example elsewhere.
And I also wonder how they lowered the form initially.
Thanks for posting that. Very inspirational.
Lovely work.
There are many Roman arches still standing, and their custom of having the engineer stand underneath while supervising the dismantling of the scaffolding surely helped with quality control.
It’s not until the end that I see this is a bridge in a driveway!
I worry about the cost to seal my asphalt driveway – hah!
A beautiful structure — it looks like they crafted several walls as practice, prior to taking on this project as a husband and wife (?) team.
What a fun mix of limited modern technology to assist in building an ancient inspired structure.
Some sculptors are now using robotics to rough out and assist in creating the basic statue forms with people providing the delicate hand finishing touches. I can imagine this method being used to craft similar beautiful and practical architectural structures for everyday use –a marriage of the past and present.
I have heard it said that later iron pegs used as outsized nails can weaken stone construction.
There are tales of mine fires where steel bracing became puddles but wooden beams remained, however charred.
I’d want a combination of different materials for a blast proof library. I have long wanted a house with no windows or plumbing. Water always seems to get to my books due to one disaster or another.
Great name for a heavy metal group
These arches are beautiful. I love this stuff.
I leaned how to cut and dress stone working for a landscape company. But all I built were simple walls.
I see they poured Huge multi ton cement blocks to act as braces or anchor points to keep the arch from spreading and eventually falling. They are found under every road arch.
If you translated this to huge arches in cathedrals these blocks would take the place of the flying buttress.
We have a huge stone arch rail bridge over a three lane road in my town. All the rails are gone and it sits unused. We still have a few smaller ones being used in our area by the railroads.
They were all built during the WPA era of the 1930’s and 40’s.