Kreg,
I need to make some sort of drawings to scale for any of my larger projects in wood. Not necessarily professional looking, but I need something to give me an idea of how the proportions work out together. When I was doing masonry, the only drawings I needed were in my head.
I have several stories about rather complicated constructions from those days. One I think I have related here about a very unusual fireplace I almost lost because the only picture I had was in my head. I even hired an architect friend to draw a sketch for me. I wanted to do it as a wedding present for a very close friend, but her husband almost killed the deal because the architect’s sketch actually was not even close to the one in my head.
Another job I got was in a town where I was not known by more than a handful of friends and family who talked the owner into using my imagination and services. She already had her builder lined up. He wanted his own mason, but the bill payer prevailed. I was asked to put in an extra fireplace At ground floor level where not had been drawn in the plans. It was to be a corner set at an odd angle and slightly off set from the original chimney design. Upstairs, the main fireplace was going to become a partition between the front entrance and the kitchen, protruding well out into the living room. The plans had shown a fireplace flat against the wall so there was no separation between front entrance and the kitchen leaving the living room totally exposed to kitchen and entrance doors.
I won’t go into all of the design problems I had to go over with the architect, builder, prefabricator (The roof rafters and ridge beam were going to precut, but assembled on site.) and homeowner. Even tho I had the plan in my head, I had to transfer my ideas to all involved, including the BI. The problem during construction was that I worked with only one helper. There was somewhat of a completion date . (I had another job to do that did have a schedule) I build the foundation and layed the hearth stones (three stones weighing from half ton to 1-1/2 or 2 tons from smallest to largest. Had to have the septic contractor raise the stones into place with his boom truck before the main foundation had been laid out, or even constructed. I had to set all the construction points before I started on the chimney base. As it turned out, my setup points had been exact and when the deck had been placed, my levels had been dead on the money as well. As the framing continued, I was progressing with my own construction. I was about to set the stones above the angle iron support which was sort of like a huge horseshoe. From that point on, the face was to be half round, but would fade into a squared angle at the point it reached the exposed framing at the cathedral ceiling. At the same time it had to fade from curved to square, there was a slope so the stone work would be shorter at the top than at the top of the firebox opening.
I asked the builder if he could set up a temporay guide giving me points to work to at the top. He would not do it, saying he wanted nothing to do with it. I supposed I couldn’t blame him for that, as I could not even draw a decent picture. I wasn’t ready to allow anybody to open my head with a can opener either. I could not wait for the roof to be framed as it was slow work on the masonry and I did not want to delay the builder’s schedule. I set the first stone at an angle I thought would be ok. By time the roof was framed, I was already about three feet above the starting point above the fireplace lintel iron. With butterflies in my tummy, I set up strings in hopes I would be close enough that I might only have to fudge just a little. If too far off, I would have had to tear down all of the stonework from the point I had started the curve. That would not have been good.
As the carpenters looked on, I think I gained a huge respect from them. My slope and curve were dead on. I did not have to change a thing. There was no delay due to my errors and, in fact, I ended up with more work in the same area as a result of that job. The builder could only shake his head when he saw I was dead on with having no firm points to work to other than what was in my head. After that, he wanted me to do all of his masonry, but I had a good thing going back in my home town area.
Tinker
