[TheForge] Feather & wedge (Re: Free the Stake!)

[Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer]

Driving in tight, dry, hardwood plugs and watering them was also 
used...pf

rsmuck wrote:
> At Manchu Pichu in Peru, they had a display of a big rock with holes 
> drilled in it, they filled the holes with water and when it froze the 
> rock would crack!!
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David E. Smucker" 
> <davesmucker at hotmail.com>
> To: <artgawk at thegrid.net>; "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:59 AM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Feather & wedge (Re: Free the Stake!)
> 
> 
>> I wonder how old this method of cutting stone is?  It would seem that 
>> since both the feathers and wedge work in compression that this would 
>> work with bronze tools.  Wrought iron would not be required.
>>
>> Dave
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer" 
>> <artgawk at thegrid.net>
>> To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 2:29 PM
>> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Feather & wedge (Re: Free the Stake!)
>>
>>
>>> I talked to an old Swede who said that his first job as a little kid 
>>> in his father's stone yard was splitting huge blocks of stone. They'd 
>>> lift him up onto the drilled block with a box of feathers and wedges 
>>> and a kid sized hammer and he'd set up the wedges and feathers in 
>>> their respective holes. Then he'd go down the line striking the 
>>> wedges and listening to the sound. The object was to match the pitch 
>>> on each hole. When he'd gone the length, he'd go back to the 
>>> beginning and raise the pitch another note. Eventually there was a 
>>> loud cracking sound and someone would come and lift him back down....pf
>>>
>>> Andrew Vida wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>>> ...I figured out that the reverse taper
>>>>> in the feathers is as important as the taper in the wedge and that the
>>>>> tapers should more or less match.
>>>>
>>>>     IMO there is nothing more or less about it.  The tapers should 
>>>> match with good precision.  You want as much sliding contact as 
>>>> possible to avoid jamming the wedge or otherwise ruining the 
>>>> surfaces.  Also, the better the contact, the better the distribution 
>>>> of the force will be. Point stresses may cause the stone to fail 
>>>> unpredictably and in undesired ways.  You want the force nicely 
>>>> distributed along the lengths of the feathers.
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