Seaming Delights

"A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works" Wm Morris

Once you've bedded an area of stone in mortar, then you turn your hands to filling the seams. It was well after thanksgiving 2018 when I finally reached the point when I felt that seam-filling of the stone terrace could begin. In fact, given how winter went that year, damp with long bouts of poor weather, and what with competing demands from involving decorating projects on the home front, it would be early spring before I actually got down to mortaring those seams. Reaching that point meant I'd stuck down enough stone in a consistent-enough design to feel comfortable closing it up - a process that makes the finished pavement spring to life by giving it its ultimate look. I was a bit flabbergasted finally to be switching modes, and painfully aware just how far there was to go. On one hand, I'd affirmatively answered the question of whether my aging body could put out enough energy to get the pad in place in embryo. But now I had to reach further down and find the added energy to embark on another phase of the work, one equally, if not more, demanding.

The job of sticking down stone had progressed quite steadily back in summer 2018, at least that is until we were hit with early fall rains, starting unexpectedly in late August. It certainly caught me by surprise. Rain is difficult at any stage of stone masonry, and I was moving way too fast to accommodate it at first. I was in 'production mode' at the time, having developed a rhythm in the inviting conditions of summer, so I made the mistake of trying to simply keep going despite the changing conditions. This passed muster in terms of raw output, but then at some point I realized that this working in wet conditions was wicking cement dust from my gloves and shoes, resulting in a misting of the placed stones by cement haze. Masked at first by wet weather, this became obvious as soon as the pad dried out again. I was appalled at my failure to recognize this while it was happening, the more so when it proved hard to clean off. In the end I simply resolved to slow down to accommodate the ambient conditions, ensuring no further inadvertent transfer of cement to stones - good recovery dude, with a gradual return to positive feeling as a result! At that point I continued sticking down stone on the inside edge of the terrace just as I began to work on filling seams at the completed outer edge. But very quickly winter imposed its long interregnum, other projects took over, and very little happened until spring's arrival intimated fresh possibilities.

October 2018 after Thanksgiving

Funny that thing about achieving higher productivity as goal one. It's what the paid artisan has to constantly do: find the way to keep the job progressing economically, whatever the prevailing conditions. Amateurs are not good at bulling jobs along, and I am amateur. That said, when looking at a big task like seaming the joints between so many small pieces of stone (perhaps five hundred plus), one may be tempted to try and bull some further productivity in order to feel that the job is actually moving! Hope is a funny thing, and to complete work you have to see tangible change towards an end in order to sustain it. But bulling the job along can be the wrong path for someone aspiring to pleasing results, especially an amateur like me. And it would be so in this case too, as hurrying the job nearly always leads me to make mistakes. (Note to file: things take as long as they take, so let them). I have been asked why I don't just leave the stones unseamed, as the voids this creates make for a pleasing emphasis. My response is simple: it's a trough for organic matter to accumulate and then it grows moss, which quickly renders a terrace unsightly and unuseable.

First attempt at filling joints between stones, October 2018

It had been quite a while - perhaps two years - since I'd done any mortaring of joints, meaning that at the outset the skills had to be, if not exactly reacquired, then re-activated. This is just simple recovery at one level, because one has in fact done it all before and thus the way is known. But there are often unexpected curves on the road to the new Jerusalem of pleasing outcomes, and a reliable source of such curves is that accursed aging process afflicting us more with each passing year. Stone paving involves lots of kneeling and extending the body out over the work - in effect, cantilevering yourself. This is more easily accommodated while young and flexible, less so as one is more antique and creaky. Transferring mortar to thin seams requires patience and accuracy, or else the risk is that you spread cement onto the pavers in the process. My process involves transferring small quantities of mortar at a time from a bucket using a Richard knife (see the yellow handled tool below), then easing it into the voids using a tuck pointer (a tool bricklayers use to finish their work) and then tooling it to give it a finished effect.

So it turned out that my efforts to make time by bulling the job along were in conflict with the higher goal of making neat and tidy work. And also, that I needed a method of correcting my inexactness, which was tending to result in mortar spreading itself onto the pavers themselves, leading to unaesthetic effects.

I staked a claim (just) to filling seams when the work came to an abrupt end for winter

The solution here turned out to be two-fold: first, slow the process so it becomes more precise in the doing; second, remediate after placement as needed using a wet, frequently cleaned sponge, so that any spread is removed. Trying to go too fast - privileging output - again got in the way of both of those things. Foremost, it was necessary to relearn how to take my time, work attentively, and remediate as needed. This involves existential adjustment - the work will take the time it takes, your job is to ensure it's done well. Capisce?

Winter seaming is feasible occasionally, ie. weather permitting. In cold weather the mortar doesn't set up quickly, which makes slow work that much more feasible. But one has to be opportunistic in exploiting weather openings, because in winter they tend to disappear. Damp cold is anathema for older bodies. For example, by early February things were starting to feel like being on the verge of spring, so I began thinking about getting back to the terrace. But then presto, winter returned with a vengeance, so it would be at least another month before there was any progress. 




On the plus side, one doesn't use up a lot of cement, as the work of placing and then finishing and dressing the seam is time-consuming for small distances. It's careful, precise practice, with some cleanup extending the time taken to complete a smallish area. A bag of mortar used for seam filling lasts a long time indeed, especially when the work is sporadic. However, a single bag of mortar can develop problems over the course of a long, wet winter, from ambient moisture being absorbed through the walls of the bag. As with this bag, indirect exposure to moisture eventually began turning some of the dry mortar into tight lumps spread through the loose sand/cement mix. I continued removing these larger lumps of material so I could draw on the loose stuff. This worked tolerably well for a time, until one day it no longer did. Nearing the end of the bag at last, I disregarded my inner voice's suggestion of new material, and so did several bouts of seam work that I discovered simply didn't firm up in the usual way. Upon touching them two days after placement, they collapsed into grains of sand. There hadn't been enough cement remaining in the mix to firmly stabilize it! Suddenly I was facing an unexpected problem of my own doing, one with some significant wrinkles: the work would have to be chipped out of all of the unstable seams, a laborious job. I won't deny I was initially demoralized at the prospect.

Then I realized I had no choice but to accept the challenge, and so began removing the material with a hammer and chisel. The big hurdle wasn't removing the dusty mortar, rather it was the method of collecting it afterwards, so as to prevent working the resulting cement dust into the surface of the surrounding stones. Brooming it up into a dustpan was also a non-starter, serving only to ensure the spread of residual cement into the surface of the stone. Then I remembered the shop vacuum and immediately saw its potential as a clean way to suck up the dust and chips from the excavated mortar. I have to say it worked like a charm, although the shop vac itself needed rather a lot of work afterwards to clear all the fine dust.

By June 2019 we are beginning to see more progress. I have accepted the need for patience and care at this point, so things take the time they take. I'm focussed now on making the most of each of what I call 'panels', which is basically the stones in their immediate associations. Of course, the whole thing is continuous, and there are no panels in reality, but as we fill the seams in distinct areas, we are increasing or modifying the association of the collection of shapes. This is, properly viewed, very funky stuff in the prettiness of outcome department, the place where rubber meets road, and also the place where effects are captured and intensified. By this point I'm finding a rhythm that's almost meditative and zen. I do not think thoughts about problems while in this space - consciousness is fully engaged with the materials. My average work bout runs from three to five hours, at which point my old body is done and quite ready for a hot bath and a long scotch (ah the pleasures of retirement!). But this is also the time when the contretemps with inadequate cement occurs, so I get to spin my wheels for a time again, before regaining my rhythm.

Unexpected rains in early July stall progress briefly, but you can see the momentum in the picture above. It's the more graphic for being after a rain, when mortar and the edges of pieces are emphasized more than the dry centres of the stones. I love this kind of day, when I get to go forward but have this emphasis provided by nature that makes everything so graphic. Once we complete the bulk of the terrace, it's time to return to the challenge of the steps, and the continuation of the terrace around them. I begin to lay them out in advance, to have an idea where the terrace will run up to them. As usual, I get too drawn into one thing without remembering how much each thing depends on the other.

 However these steps finally look, terrace has to be built around them, and appear to continue under them. Soon it will be time to take the existing wooden steps away, so we can actually see what the proposed step layout looks like. I am evolving the first step here, around some facing stones and a large central stone. It's complicated because the ensemble has to 'turn', in order not to land mechanically on the terrace. Nothing would be worse here than a crudely rendered geometry! As you can see, I've returned to my process of mortaring a plinth in place to lessen the depth of mortar I use to fix the stones. This is a necessity born of variable width paving material, a sign of the randomness of my available materials.

I'm trying to evolve this ensemble organically, but I'm actually missing the boat. My front pieces, though happily associated, are laid out as if they can stand alone on top of the terrace, with the step fitted neatly in behind them. This turns out to be a fallacy - the step (one of two up to the wooden landing) - needs to rise to a height greater than the height of the front stones. To accommodate this, there would need to be stone risers under the front step in order to level the front stones up. This, it strikes me suddenly, would be ugly. I try a few fits on in order to assess the problem, and it turns out to be real. There's no way I can see to put something under these pieces that doesn't destroy their feeling of being 'naturally' placed. Reluctantly, I begin to accept that my design has to change. This is the reality of stone masonry - concepts get lost in translation, and we have to invent something entirely new.

Despite a growing awareness that my step design must change, I continue to pick away at the terrace surrounding it. Slow progress, but fairly sure. I am enjoying this piece of it without knowing where the overall design is going. I do know that my steps need to be just shy of eight inches in height though, which will govern the height of the fronting piece. I begin searching my rock pile for possibilities.

But despite the uncertainties, this remains big fun. I love the process of lining the seams, basically tooling them with narrow tuck pointers, to create an intentional effect. This is an involving task but one I actually look forward to. I care not a whit that other people treat the seams as background to the stones, minimally softening them, sometimes leaving them rather brutally (to my eye) unkempt. I am simply doing my own thing, trying to find the way to combine beauty with utility.