/diy/ - Do It Yourself

How did you get into stone?
How do you like your job? Pros and cons?

>>2712714
How illegal is it to bring a chisel and hammer wherever you go to shitpost on mountains and rocks?

>>2712714
Is a granite counter top or cutoffs from one usable as a low grade surface plate? What's the typical flatness error on them

>>2712714
>'ate the antichrist
>'ate the jews(not racist, just don't like 'em)
>luv me stone threads
Got a couple of questions for you brother. If I am building an exterior stone wall, like for a garden, does the type of stone really matter? I've read some books and sedimentary rocks have the lease durability, but do I really need to build me wall from igneous stones like granite? I am going to need alot of stone, so I am trying to open any available options. Been watching alot of Mike Hadduck, so my questions are probably retarded

>>2712748
not OP but yea igneous rocks will generally be more resistant to weathering and degradation than sedimentary, but that is not an absolute rule. Metamorphosed rocks will often be the most durable and they can be either igneous or sedimentary to start.

OP do people still build houses entirely out of stone? like thick 18"+ walls, arched windows and entries, etc. I only see them every so often being constructed around here in a historic district with 200+ year old stone buildings.. They're always barns or rebuilds, never new construction. Is this a fools errand, thinking you can buy a piece of land either with workable stone deposits or near a quarry with the same, then build a house from stone? Where in the US is rich in good building stone? Can it be reasonably cost effective to build a small cottage if you can find a source of good stone? Or is it something where modern building codes make it financially illogical?

>>2712731
>How did you start
I had a friend of a friend of the family who needed a worker when I was in highschool. Started by laboring, then went into restoration while in university and started a company, bailed on school.
>Pros and cons
There are a myriad of pros and cons that come with running any business, but since I've moved into the high end type of work there are some unique things. My clients are all very very wealthy, meaning I have to deal with their assistants, designers and clueless other people who are around them, it takes a lot of tact to deal with them. Beyond this because I offer Stone care/restoration in occupied homes, you have to shift from typical construction worker attitude to white glove service, lots of taping, plastic, prepping, managing toxic chemicals etc. knowing how to do this without damaging a 2million dollar painting while still being quick enough to make money is challenging. Pros? I never advertise, 100% of my work is word of mouth, which means a lot of great clients and no "bidding" on jobs. They are all mine and they don't care what I charge (within reason) they are paying for me and my services, not just my services. Hiring guys is impossibly hard.

>>2712733
I'm not a mason, but I suspect pretty illegal

>>2712743
I'd say you have to hunt for a very thick slab for it to be straight. 3/4 slabs wonk out very quickly in storage, they bow and bend and flex - it took me by surprise the first time I saw a slab bend into a banana just from moisture and its own weight due to inadequate storage.

>>2712748
Sedimentary stone will be the most fragile and porous, granite is the most cost effective strength to cost ratio. Long term I wouldn't worry, lots of buildings made of limestone and other soft materials, they won't fall apart in your lifetime. Just to for what's the nicest aesthetically, easiest to work with and cost effective based on your priorities. >>2712757 that anon is right btw

>>2712757
>Houses made of stone?

Nope. I never see them anymore. I've done some homes that have the original granite structure but typically it's all stone cladding, usually Indiana limestone.

House structure is wood then the cladding sits on the concrete footing and pinned to the wood structure. Currently on a house where it's 100% limestone exterior but it's non structural.

>>2712757
You might try doing a search in the CT area. I don't know shit about this subject, but I DO remember going on a vacation, about 20 years ago - there's a town, built near a marble quarry. The whole fucking town is practically built of marble and they have a beautiful museum, filled with sculptures, bowels, etc, built of marble. There has to be one hell of a huge deposit around there.

>>2712743
ABOM79, on utube, did a whole series on this, a couple of years ago and I'm sure there's others. The hand-scraping effort that goes into a surface plate made me want to tear my eyes out. Those surfaces aren't as smooth as they look, which really surprised me, as I have a very old marble scientific table which SEEMS really flat, when you look at it.

>>2712743
a manufactured tile might be a better option

Hey SA
I want to procure some large 3/4"(?) slabs of soapstone for a bathroom floor. So probably two 4x12' slabs. Is there a way to get book matched slabs..easily. It's for my house so no deadline.
>>2712848
>3/4" slabs bend
So should I go thicker, what's the next common size up? I'm on a slab so nbd.
>>2712757
>Stone structural house
My dream. Your best bet is probably up here in New England and find a plot by a quarry.

>>2712714
I'm kind of a medium tier handyman/Diyer and I've been looking into getting some cheap prefabbed granite slabs to do my kitchen counters. I'd wind up cutting for length and doing a sink cutout using a diamond disc on a grinder and a diamond hole saw, respectively.

A lot of youtube videos make this look very approachable for a DIYer, but am I a retard who is foolishly overlooking crucial details? I gather that transporting and moving the slabs is the single most difficult part of the job

>>2712891
NTA but pretty sure this should be "VT" as in Vermont, not "CT" as in Connecticut. Fair Haven, VT is probably the town referenced. CT produced a lot of brownstone (sandstone) out of Portland, CT quarries, but only for cladding the eponymous townhouses and municipal buildings, since sandstone sucks structurally.

>>2712714
Do people specialized in carving stone for use as permanent features on buildings exist in the US like they do in the UK thanks to their cathedral renovation industry?

>>2712853
>Currently on a house where it's 100% limestone exterior but it's non structural.
That sounds goofy as hell

>>2712959
>That sounds goofy as hell

When was the last time you saw a brick house in the US where the bricks were structural? I've never seen one.

>>2712714
Building myself a stone house with my father in law atm, what do you think of our stonework? He's experienced but it's my first so i just carry the rocks, mix the cement, spill the cement wheel cart and make a mess and that sort of thing.

>>2712971
I more mean the entirety of the exterior of the house being limestone, is he going for the Flintstones aesthetic?

how to build this (on bronze tech mode)

>>2712714
could you talk about bulk stone pricing on dimension stone and the processing costs like saws and stuff? Are these million dollar facilities? can dimension stone be cut precisely for cheaply? How much do things like your picrel cost? and how much does the cost go up after it gets to the customer? I would love to be able to produce stone like in your pic for building stuff.. would talking to a local granite counter fabricator be a good place to get pricing on the type of saw they use for that?

>>2712714
What do you think of the recent hubbub around megalithic stone work?

>>2712919
>Procure some large 3/4 slabs
Start calling suppliers and fabricators and ask. Typically we call them "blocks" which means a stack of slabs all from one block. When they have 2-3 of them they will sell them to you, but often they don't want to part with a few slabs from a block if they can sell the whole block of say, 50 slabs, to one guy.
>3/4" bending
The bending issue isnt really an issue when used for floors. We are always clipping slabs and flexing them into place while installing, it's only an issue for people who want a dead flat surface for specialized fabrication.
>bookmatched and soapstone
soapstone is VERY soft, keep this in mind, it will scratch and wear quite a bit, if that's what you are looking for thats okay. I would recommend a porcelain slab or granite/quartzite if you want more durability. Marble/limestone/soapstone etc are very fragile and require someone like me to re-surface them every 2-6 years depending on how anal you are. Porcelain bookmatching has come a looooong way in the last few years.

>>2712930
>diy counters
The hard part is the fabrication side. Cutting holes and fitting them isn't the worst if you are relatively okay diy, its the polishing of the edges that sucks. There are some handy products to make it easier but at the end of the day anything more advanced than a flat edge and mild chamfer I'd call a professional. Supplies to do the edge polishing and epoxy work will also run you quite a bit and may not be worth it in the long run.

>>2712957
>carving
Not sure, I've never done it but always wanted to. The volume of work is obviously less here in the US/Canada since we dont have a lot of those old buildings.

>>2712982
>what do you think?
I'm not a mason, but I think it's absolutely stunning and full of character. I like the exposed split faces and balance between large, medium and pebble sizes, very well composed and cleanly installed.

>>2712996
Treta yuga tier psychokenetic powers obviously

>>2713004
>fabrication pricing
I don't do much fabrication these days, it's been about a decade since I've run saws. Stone facilities come in two forms - the "caesarstone counter for everyone" type and the "we can do literally anything you want" type. With the first, expect a good table saw and some creative ways to shuffle slabs around and you are all set, you can even do edge work with relatively simple tools, it just takes time. The "can do everything" shop has waterjets, multiple table saws and huge edging machines, these are many many millions of dollars to get up and running - That only accounts for the fabrication. Consider you need someone who can measure, read a block and figure out where the veins are travelling for book matching, someone who can do layouts and not end up short a few slabs. Consider the blades and knowledge on which blade cuts what well, for example, you may need a new $700 blade for every single cut on very hard natural quartzite, that same blade could be running all week on marble. How about workers, PPE while using epoxies, dust collection, disposal of solvents, the right sealers etc. There are a million variables and I'm not the right guy to ask, but that should give you an idea of what's involved.

I've seen people make a lot of money just doing countertops out of their little shop vs. my home shop, which does full bookmatched layouts and ships slabs directly from all over the world, its a 10 million dollar operation if I had to guess. They even do pretty insane waterjet work, embedded led lighting in slabs etc.

>>2713014
>>2713004
>bulk pricing
sorry I wanted to add one more thing. MOST shops dont actually buy slabs directly. How it works is.
>designer and client go to a supplier
>they look at slabs that are available, decide what they like etc.
>they then get a shop who can handle the project, this is where a prestigious shop vs. not so expensive shop is chosen
>they discuss with the shop the details, layouts etc, and the shop does the actual fabrication of the slabs
>an installer gets the slabs and puts them down

Rarely does ONE place take care of all those steps. Why is it like this? Different suppleirs are ordering slabs from all over the world, you may find a stone at one supplier but not the other so you aren't forced to work only with what your fabricator has on hand.

>pricing
It's too varied, I see slabs that are $30k per slab vs $900, there's a heavy price on it too since slab sellers generally get a comission, everyone is taking their part (rightfully so) before it gets to your home.

>>2712714
using wet saw or a drip line can you use anything else other than water as a coolant to preseve diamond grit?
anything handy around the house that would make better coolant on a wet saw or drip line?
have you ever looked into growing crystals and stones?
whats the best and worst mixed media to combine with stone?
hows your health doing afyer 20 years?
bad knees? arthritis? tingly hands?
and good tips on proper form?
anything you learned that a regular homeowner or amatuer stone worker would nessicarily know?
im glad youre on here stone anon.
im really interested in stonework.
do you have any issues or do you forsee any problems with environmental impacts or business practise in your field of work?
what do you do with all the stone dust?
any good uses for it?

>>2713018
>other lubricants
No, since stone is super porous and will often stain, you cant use ANYTHING petroleum based around stone unless you want it dark and stinky forever. Almost all stone is porous af most people don't realize this. The best way to preserve a diamond is to slow down.
>growing crystals
Nope
>Best and worst combos
managing expansion between say wood and stone sucks, usually I use a color matched silicone. Other than that one big mistake I see is putting a granite inlay around marble- their service intervals, ease of repair and response to common contaminants are so different (ie marble erodes with acid, etches, stains etc). So if I go into a house and have to grind a marble floor with granite inlays, it means taping off the granite and treating it to a totally different polishing process ($$$)
>health
I'm very healthy and always wear kneepads and a p100 respirator when working with solvents/epoxy. A big part of why I moved to repair vs. intallation was exposure to dust and my knees, most of my work is done with water = no dust and I use a floor machine so I'm standing all day. I have mean tennis elbow though and wear a brace.
>advice for home owners and amateurs
When you get to the repair side, you better have a damn good eye for colour matching and knowing the differences between stone families, it takes a long time to get good at that, remember, you cant put back what you grind away and pulling epoxy (which is harder than most of the materials you work with) is a bitch, so test test test always. For homeowners, stop using acid based cleaners, almost every "eco" cleaner is acidic. Acids literally EAT marble.
>do with the stone dust
I put it in my garden, its basically straight calcite and my veggies are happy.
>environment
Stone can almost always be fixed, which means no replacement. Tile vs stone is basically the same, still gets shipped from all over and thats bad.

>>2713018
>other advice
My comment was too long. I'll add this - The stone industry is VAST and there are many niches that some will do better or worse in. I happen to be pretty good with people and am far too detailed/meticulous to excel under tight timelines or in a shop - It took a while but basically transitioned out of tile installation to repair since it lets me create my best work. I also get to work very cleanly (being in mansions all the time) and patiently (not to damage things) and the money is there to support my personality. Learning how to manage people, from CEO's to mobsters, is in itself a skill. I've seen guys who just can't wing it during those situations, it can be overwhelming dealing with a known criminal or working for a celebrity, they (for the time you work for them) become your whole world, and you adjust to meet them where they are at, there's no wiggle room for them to meet you. That can be applied to any business of course.

I always tell young guys to get into their respective niche that caters to the wealthiest class, its removes a ton of the headaches you get with the middle class (pricing and karens) or in new development (constant timeline pushes). Really wealthy folk dont have time for that, and absolutely don't want to be your friend. Do your job, do it quietly and respectfully and they will throw money at you.

>>2713017
>I see slabs that are $30k per slab vs $900,
that's crazy. Yea the high end stuff is amazing and i imagine once you start talking about rare stone, prices can go parabolic. Very cool, thanks for sharing. There is just something beautiful about stone once it has been worked flat, particularly polished.. If you wanted to order bulk stone and cut it into rectangular dimension stones, the size of a cinder block, what kind of tool would you use? Guillotine? Or a diamond chain type of saw? Or just the old fashioned way? Seems like finding a stone with the right natural cleavages can go a long way to getting labor input down.. But some stones really do cut well like limestones. There is a stone in part of western maryland and probably runs thru appalachia as well, but it's deep red and looks like brick and has nice square cleavage. Lots of buildings in cumberland made of it.

>>2713024
Story time regarding expensive stone
>be me
>get a call for a rush repair for a VIP client
>Rare quartzite slabs, book matched, wall to wall. Each slab was in the 25k territory, the installer called each one a "toyoya camry". totalling about 300k in material for this ONE bathroom.
>installer cracked one slab by the window, 1mm height variance, already installed on the wall.
>can see the crack badly because the window
>homeowner wants it pulled, told the installer he'd pay the original price just can't live with it and doesnt want to wait to find a replacement
>quartzite... harder than granite, shatters when ground etc.
>took me 2-3 days to drop the height and I had to feather it about 3-4 feet to hide the depression from the grind. Polishing material that hard was a nightmare. Note that this was a wall so no gravity, had to channel all my water to a bucket as I worked and push on the wall as hard as I could while running a grinder and not digging into it (shatters the stone substrate).
>tfw it passes

I have many many stories

>>2713008
Yes I know, talc is soft. I'm not worried about scratches or wearing as long as it'll last about 100y without outright failing. I like it's workability so I can fabricate the slabs to size on site and also make counters/sink/backsplash
It seems like there aren't many people that carry it and everyone just stocks marble, granite, porcelain, corrian etc.
I like stone for its imperfections and character (same with wood) which is why all the clone/fake materials bother me so much. Marble-like, x-like etc just makes me irrationally angry.
What do you use for clips? I've seen one product for mounting large field tiles on ceilings where you router out the back and install mounting hardware but was just a cursory search. I wanted to do soapstone slabs on the ceiling too but my wife was worried about the stone of Damocles making the room feel too small. Probably true.
How much work to resurface a 100sq ft floor, is it something I can rent the polisher and do myself? The shower would be curbless so I'd have to cut the showerpan slab into trapezoids to make it slope to the drain so it wouldn't be flat like a floor in there. Pic unrelated

Is ABC stone legit? They have some nice looking slabs.

>>2712714
What is the hardest blasting medium?

>>2713351
My dick before morning piss

>>2713320
If you can't find soapstone go with travertine, it's a bit harder, fairly stain resistant and picks up its own patina over time which looks nice. In slab form you can get cross cut varieties that are beautiful. Its also not just in beige or white, there are grey travertines that are very very nice.

>Fake stuff
The man made stuff is great until it's damaged, it's nearly impossible to repair to it's original finish, forcing us to grind it edge to edge to ensure a consistent lustre. With porcelain you can't grind it at all, but it's fairly durable, a honed porcelain slab will last you many many years. Personally I would always go with granite, dark varieties are pretty much impervious to damage when they aren't outright abused, also very cheap compared to say, natural quartzite.

>Clips
Picrel is the clips in was referring to. Using one every 4-5 inches can really squeeze a slab flat. With larger slabs of thin material (say. 1/4 inch porcelain slabs running 10'x5') you have to use them since it flexes under its own weight and looks funny.

>Slabs on the ceiling
This requires proper ceilings. Going and hanging slabs on your ceiling is pretty dangerous without an engineer evolved and very high quality cements. Besides this your layout should be made to support that slab on at least two sides, ideally three. I think the best thing for slabs on walls is to leave a 1 inch reveal before your ceiling then just paint the ceiling. It's classy looking and avoids the pain of managing a drywall to stone junction. Hides many errors.

>Shower floor is curbless etc.
If you can muster the cost, go for a schluter drain (a long trough) on one side and run your slab sloping to it, the trapezoid thing works fine too but less joints = less points of penetration. Personally, I think stone shower floors are a bad idea and tend to wear down quickly without professional maintenance.

Cont.

>>2713450
Forgot picrel

>>2713320
>How much work to restore 100sqft
Honestly it depends on the stone. If marble maybe 1/2 day depending on the prep involved and state of the material. Granites would take double if not longer time.

>Renting a polisher
The polisher isn't the issue, it's the cost of diamonds and compounds not to mention technical knowledge. Typical maintenance looks like this.
>400 grit resin diamond grind (or lower if the damage is deep)
>800 grit resin diamond grind
>1500 grit resin diamond grind
>Polish
>Polish more
>Neutralize compounds
>Grout clean
>Seal (if the material is dry enough)

Each diamond step requires 4-6 diamonds, they are expensive. You need a powerful wetvac to collect your water and not damage things, good luck renting one that can handle the work without scratching the floor as you work. Compounds for polishing plus a pad is also fairly expensive and then sealer wise, a high quality penetrating sealer is hard to find and hard to use.

Can it be done? Sure. Will the average person know the subtle ratios needed to achieve a high quality finish? Will they know how to feather grinds, for how long and do it without creating depressions? How about edges? Will you get your variable speed out and edge without damaging baseboards etc. I don't want to discourage you, but ive fixed other companies work, nevermind a person who hasn't done it before, it's more complicated than it seems. So usually it's just not worth the hassle when you can make the $1500 it costs in your normal job and pay a pro to do it.

It's worth noting here that the "finish" on natural stone isn't a product, it's the actual smoothness of the stone, not a wax, not a coating etc. (it's a common question I get). Its why the job is hard to break into. Some stone is easy some is extremely challenging to work with.

>>2713450
This was similar to the ceiling anchors I'd briefly looked at. Didn't go too in depth after scrapping the idea.
The issue I had is, and maybe you have insights, I didnt want the slope of the floor to be left to right when standing normally (so left foot is higher than right) but back to front so the difference would be adjusted in the ankle not the knee.
The shower being 4x6' youd notice the 1/4" a foot slope for drainage.
Pitching it back to front however would leave a small vertical triangle/curb as the floor sunk below the level of the floor on one end.
This lead me to the trapezoid solution w a central drain. I had thought about the ultr Gucci option of 4 linear drains around the entire perimeter but seems..wrong?
Don't like the penny tile option most people use to get around tiling over a sloped drain pan and wanted the whole floor to be one material.
Bathroom will be gutted to the studs and slab cut into for other plumbing changes so plan to float the floor like they do out west.
>>2713461
Oh those clips, yeah that's what I use on large format tiles I thought you meant pic rel.
$1500 seems reasonable every 5? years desu.

>>2713472
>Your picrel
I don't do exterior installs which is where you'd see those anchors typically used. I've never used them indoors.

>Small triangle curb
Yes it's never going to be truly curbless if you go with a slit drain, you'll always have that drop down where we typically throw glass. At six feet you are looking at roughly a 2inch to zero triagular curb off the top of my head. If you go with a center drain you are basically drawing an x in the floor and sloping those four triagles to the center (square) drain, but it can be curbless. A less technical approach is what you've mentioned, a mosaic tile (or as you said penny tile) makes things a lot easier. You drypack your slope and install to your heart's content. The caveat is that more grout = more headaches down the road.

If it were me I'd go with a porcelain mosaic subway tile, semi-gloss or matt (really dull can be hard to keep clean) non textured tile (soap magnet) then do my walls in a beautiful stone slabs. Absolutely do not recommend using a natural stone mosaic, it will look great for a year they you'll be pulling your hair out when you realize you can't clean it with any of the common soap scum removers. It will discolour and become nasty quickly. Its the most common situation where I recommend renovation/replacement over repair. Besides this, avoid black grout, another common mistake, go with a white and use sealer to maintain it and bleach to keep it white.

Hopefully that answered some qs, I'm on a phone so it's hard to answer properly

>>2713480
Yeah that checks
This is a rough sketch of my idea. W a 2x2 bench the shower pan is technically just a 4x4. (Wouldnt actually have a round drain)
Your pic is how I wanted the glass. Frameless with floor and ceiling channels, which could hide the slope transition.
I'd also considered a V formation with a central 4' channel drain like in your pic then your feet would at least be on the same elevation

>>2713480
>Subway
This was the design language I wanted.
With full soapstone slabs for the floor and 2 non glass shower walls. Then white w black grout subways for the rest of the walls. Was still deciding on if I should subway the ceilings too for the ultimate tile fart chamber.
Holy fuck burn that light fixture Jesus Christ what were they thinking?!

>>2712714

Tile anon here.

What's your favorite stone sealer that gives it a little bit of gloss and repels water?

Why do so many folks insist on using unsanded grout with natural stone tiles? You can use sanded grout and as long as you are careful during the install it won't scratch the tile.

What's your favorite product for performing fills on cracks and chips in stone?

If you have some scuffing on some marble or quartz, and you want to take it out, how low of a grit should you start with? 40? 60? 80?

>>2713022
Working for the rich, how do you feel about a lot of your work going into awful gaudy stuff like your picrel? Honest question. Oftentimes working for a client I feel like a lot of the effort is not "worth" the end product, or worse, that it's a shame to waste good expensive materials on that.

>>2713489
Just go with something simple.like picrel. If you have a square/rectangle around the drain you will end up with pooling issues and some hard water build up. Your seat design is nice, just avoid any seat that has legs, it becomes a mold magnet. Either wall bracketed in stainless (free standing seat) or your bench design.

>>2713612
>Favorite sealer that gives a little gloss
There is no good or recommended sealer for stone that add to the final lustre/reflectivity of the material. Why? Because stone will rot and weaken if moisture can't escape, and a lustre alerting sealer always caps the pores of the stone. There are two specific products I recommend. For natural stone where you just want it sealed, Lithofin PSI. For stone you need "enhanced" to make it look dark/wet because it's honed, Tenex Ager or Tenex Ager Tiger. I never use anything else unless outdoors but that's another topic.

>Why unsanded grout
Many reasons to not go sanded and an excellent question. First of all, marble joints are typically much smaller than normal tiles, sanded grout cant get in there deep enough to really do it's job well assuming those tight joints. "As long as you are careful" doesn't matter, natural stone required repair in the future and sanded grout interferes with this process by scratching the floor during grinding and polishing stages. It's very frustrating to be at your final grind and picking up pieces of sand that is leaving banana shapes scratches everywhere. Never ever use sanded. You can use ultraflex super or wtv (orange bag by mapei) it doesn't scratch for some reason.

>Favorite product for cracks
Gold brand clear polyester resin epoxy. Much harder to work with than typical stone resins but does an amazing job and lasts a lot longer.

>Scuffing
40-60-80?!?!! Noooo, way too aggressive. 50 and under is for shaping or lippage removal, light wear is 400 grit. 800-3000grits are there to feather previous grinds and are never really used on their own, only to bring back smoothness and prep for polishing. Typically a scuff can be removed with just polishing using a hybrid chemical/mechanical compound. This means the polishing powder has some acidity to bite into the stone but not so much it erodes it. This will often hide a scuff if you know how to use the product properly (it's not easy).

>>2713759
>Being urked by working for the rich - design
I can't say it hasn't bothered me. I just finished a job where I had to tape off sections of the house and they wanted some pieces dull, some pieces polished, some with color enhancing sealer some not, tolerances between slabs was less than 1/16th. It was a nightmare. I had to consciously figure out how to feel good about this nasty ass design, so I shifted my thinking to my own skills, and how it was an opportunity to really push myself to produce my best work even if I didn't like it. I walked away knowing not many of my competitors (we all know each other) could have come close to the quality I produced, I feel extremely proud of what I accomplished there and it paid well.

>Being urked by the waste
On that same job they tossed $200k of material because the homeowner made an adjustment to the design that would leave a one inch gap in a section of the house and the precut material past that point was rendered unusable. It's absurd, it got under my skin. But, these same people have 200milliom dollar yachts, pilots and jets etc. so really their whole existence just bothers me. At the same time, they feed me, my family, my kids etc. many of them grew up in so much opulence their relationship to money is vastly different than ours. I suppose to some Chinese peasant, we are that person, whether we waste food or throw away easily repairable cars, electronics etc, we aren't so different in the big picture.

Many of these super rich folk are extremely nice, classy and mentally healthy people who are a pleasure to deal with, many made it on their own too and know the hustle and reward you for going the extra mile (I get a lot of tips). The hard ones are the mobsters, criminals etc. biker dudes are chill, Italian mbsters are scary but harmless, Russian mobsters/oligarchs are the most terrifying humans I've ever worked for. I'm motivated by producing excellent work and charging enough to have the time to do it.

>>2712853
Lmao come to Portugal . We still make homes out ot stone, except roof and isolation ofc

>>2713819
OK that looks good too saved.
I wanted to do a bench like this but not nearly so exaggerated. Have the backrest just go smoothly up the wall instead of parabolic. My plan was stackthe thick schluter boards on their ends and shape out the bench then cut 48 1x24" and lay them down like piano keys.
What sort of mortars do you like? I've been using Multimax Lite and like working with it.
How about waterproofing? The 15d submerged tests that TileCoach on YouTube have really opened my eyes to the stuff people advertise as "waterproof". Hydroban line seems like it's the clear best for showers. Plan on installing steam heads in the shower so don't want to end up causing moisture issues in adjacent rooms in the long term.
>>2713841
Imagine the fart echoes
I'm not really a marble guy but that's pretty impressive. What mortars were used for the ceiling slabs? Do those go up before the wall slabs?
>tossed $200k of material
Lol don't look in the scrap bin at your local Navy yard (which they give away to recylers for $0 every month). Waste, Fraud, & Abuse should be the military's motto.

You mentioned that stone slabs can deform with time, poor storage and moisture. Could this be intentionally used to make something like say, a shower stall with a one piece floor?
Say you rest a large slab with its center unsupported for ages, would it go concave enough to basically mount a drain in the center, and set the whole thing down as the floor in a shower, allowing for a drainage slope without multiple pieces?

Or is it just more effective to grind the surface concave if people want something like that?

>>2713974
Technology has changed a lot since my time installing. White multipurpose cement is always what I used and still seeing used but not sure which brand is considered best. Regarding the seat idea, I think staying straight is best, as it allows you to squeegee it dry with ease and minimal grout joints. If you are not worried about that, I'd probably just build the structure out in cement board then use that orange waterproofing (forgot the name) skimmed in multipurpose cement then put my mosaics/tiles across the shapes. In theory if you use natural stone mosaics you can also grind away 1/8th or so to curve things slightly, but this would be insane to do and a lot of work, but possible.
>Picrel from my post
It's not my work, don't want to be doxxed.

>>2714011
I would not think they would deform enough to make that possible. Maybe Caesar stone sure, it's pretty flexible, but natural stone would eventually fracture in really strange ways eventually leading to issues in the grain of the material that could be problematic down the road, cracks, discoloration and Fischer's would form long before your desired slope was achieved. Grinding would be wiser in the long run, but you'd need material thick enough to meet your sloping needs and still be strong enough to install without breaking. You'd also need to resurface it all to wtv finish you want which is tedious and expensive. Ive never seen it done, in have seen tubs and sinks of course, but never a shower floor.

>>2714033
>>2714011
I wanted to add, terrazzo would probably be your best bet for this one piece shower floor idea, it doesn't handle water that well in the long run, since the small voids between the epoxy/cement and the stone chips behave differently with heat, but it would last about a decade without trouble. I think granite with sealer in slab form or porcelain is the best way to do a shower floor.

>>2712994
It's very common. Usually the cladding stops at the sides, then it becomes clap board or vinyl or aluminum, but sometimes you see it all around. With the proper accents, you could put any type of stone cladding on a house and it would look nice, especially with the right color palette.

>>2712757
If you go diy there are ways to acquire stone for lower costs. If you have amassed some cash moneys you can chat with the quarry owners or managers and get a big discount. When you go through a contractor it's not always as easy because they like to make a cut and have receipts to claim expenses, and then you'll need a lot more cash to pay for the labor.

For tax valuation, one could claim that it's cladding and it would take more than a municipal evaluator to call you out and say it's actual stone. In Minecraft.

>>2714035
What about terrazzo with bigger chunks and smaller spaces? I remember seeing gym showers at a 150 year-old college made with something similar to picrel.

>>2713841
I see. Interesting outlook. Thank you, stone anon. Have a good day.

>>2714086
Sure, but the bigger the pieces the less you can curve and shape it. Usually with big chunks you just grind the whole thing flat as you can and enjoy your smooth floor. It's not common in the US but in europe I've seen it quite a bit. No need to overcomplicate things, normal terrazzo is awesome if you like the way it looks, big chunks floor is good for when you are cheap and have the know how to make it work and which stone can be ground together flat.

Tell us more job stories.

>>2714176
>be me
>get phone call
>Thick russian accent "You are the man who fix marble, correct? Be at this address tomorrow at 4:00. Works?"
>Go to ordinary house in a middle/upperclass subdivision
>walk inside, it's literally palace tier finishing all over. Ornate gold fixtures, marble walls etc.
>Talk to an old man and his wife, wife gives me email address, including her last name
>tfw you google them and the dude is wanted by every agency internationally
>tfw you take the job and there are john wick looking people watching you all day

Obviously I would never snitch on him because I don't want to be in danger, but he was a very ruthless, dangerous man according to what I read online. We talked about dogs and had many espressos together. I worked alone just in case.

>be me, 2019, massive home
>feels like im in a 80's action movie set of a Russian mobster, massive property, black terriers roaming outside
>Underpriced the job by mistake, too nervous to adjust
>job goes well, go to get paid
>guy tells me "I know you priced too low, I wont pay a penny more, but I will give you advice...In the beginning of next year, sell all your stocks, buy them back later, you'll see"
>I shit you not. Covid happens, stocks collapse in february (several months after I did the job) and I immediately thought of that guy

>be me, apprentice, in house of a known leader of a big gang,
>middle of a normal town, but the interior is gorgeous, ferrari in the garage etc.
>hear knock on the door, guy banging while I'm running my machine
>usually watched by mountain man covered in tattoos, but he's not around
>look to the door, guys wearing ski goggles and losing his mind trying to get me to open the door
>raise hands in the air, nope... not opening it, walk away and look for mountain man
>he opens the door, its the head of the gang, grabs my neck and tells me I did good. picrel

I have so many. Degenerate son, kimono lady, mannequin guy, tiny mobster, border crossing, sad ones etc.

>>2714188
>sad ones
how does a sad stone story go?

>>2714456
A few sad situations

1. Wealthy clients who are near their death who don't want their spouse living in a ruined home. Wheelchairs and at home medical care ruin their stone. I usually carefully make my way through the house not only fixing the stone, but cleaning up cabinets, light switches, washing the walls etc. They are often people I've known for many many years or are friends of clients who trust me - it's pretty emotionally taxing. Others who do at home service will know there are some clients who just want someone to talk to and you become that someone more often than you'd think ~5-15% of any day is spent just chatting with a client about things, not sure if it's me as a person or their loneliness.

2. Middle class folk who didn't hire a designer and made terrible decisions. The wrong grout, poor installers, no budget for maintenance, extremely sensitive materials put in the wrong places (like porous limestones/sandstones in showers). You shrug it off when it's a rich person, but when its a recently retired couple or a young family who aren't so wealthy and they spent a ton of money on issues that could have been avoided, it does feel bad.

3. Drug abuse. Every so often you get a glassy eyed client who is either on a cocktail of medication or alcohol or both and you spend a week working in the strangest atmosphere. They are bored, lonely and very high/drunk all day while you do your thing. I stay patient when they ask me the same thing 400 times and just do my job, it's very awkward.

>>2712853
How much do you reckon a proper structural stone house would cost? I've been unable to find any builders in my state.

>>2714494
No idea. Sorry

>>2714496
No worries, I couldn't afford it anyway lol

>>2714496
How do you cope with all the bad stonework around you (that others did) does it bother you or have you just accepted it?
Is there a name for this edge processing on this block? 2 smooth sides and the right angle profile w natural faces. Fuck do I want a house made out of blocks like this.

Thanks for ruining my dreams of a dark slate shower anon. I will go be sad now.

This actually takes mental burden off, now I can buy porcelain boring shower and spend time/money elsewhere.

>>2714958
When did he do that

>>2714958
Dark slate is one of the worst tiles unless it's been ground smooth then it's okay. Slate is actually fairly non porous. Going with a cleffed natural surface slate would be horrendous, you'd get pooling water and eventually pieces getting loose and shanking you.

Stick to a honed granite or procelain for your shower floor. If you want marble, avoid mosaics and use a high grade epoxy or latex fortified grout as a jointing material. Crema marfil is a pretty shower friendly marble and very common. Avoid most limestones and sandstones as they are sponges and mold prone.

>>2713933
same here, just north of you, for a country that likes so much oversized things, i dont get how in usa they have such flimsy houses

>>2714968
What about leathered or flammed stone for shower floors?

>>2715107
Hard to say, leathering texturizes the stone according to it's soft and hard minerals/veins. Ultimately any texture will mean it's hard to dry out/squeegee/clean, so I'd typically recommend avoiding a textured stone. Flamed is too rough imo, you'd get soap sitting in all the little holes. Picrel is a leathering diamond/brush (bristles are carbide infused).

>>2714943
>coping with bad stonework
About 5-10% of my work is either fixing someone's mistake or doing the finishing for an installer. It could take many forms, either mitre work, lippage removal (full levelling if a not so good installation), epoxy color matching, sealing and cleaning, final polishing because grouts marred the finish (usually black stone). Once an installer finds me or someone like me, they price my work into the project and convince their client to work with me directly.

In general though, poor workmanship is only handled by me for high value clients, your average homeowner is hiring tile setters and giving them marble, hoping for the best. I am not usually in their budget unfortunately. The most common and gut wrenching is when a bad installer skims on subfloor material or doesn't prep the material for installation, I've seen many many floors with numerous loose tiles, broken grout, cracks etc.

The worst was ~2000 square feet of beautiful marble tiles, they had mesh on the back to keep them stable, typically you grind it a bit with a stone and then install. ALL THE TILES DELAMINATED. I was called in, gave a ludicrous price but found a solution. I scraped the loose grout out, color matched 60-70 Quarts of liquid epoxy, poured it into the voids and bashed it with a rubber mallet until it seeped down. Once finished I re-grouted, ground the floor and excess epoxy and repolished it. 2 years later one tile popped. Worst week of my life (so far), you could see the fumes in the air when the front door was open, nobody was allowed in the home or to use tools, smoke, cook etc.

>>2714943
>edge profile + natural face
No idea what it's called but I suspect they either used an edge grinding machine or a boss did it by hand with a grinder. One of the first shops I worked for did all their edge work by hand, they had this old vietnamese guy who was a literal master with a mini-grinder. Indistinguishable from machine cut. He would tell me stories of growing up during the vietnam war while we chopped wood for the fireplace (there was no heater in the shop).

>>2715130
You ever figure out your avg price per hour?

So I bought some "gauged" slate tiles for my foyer and the issue I ran into was a large variation in thickness even within the same tile. So the hours spent floating a mud bed seem largely wasted as I still had a lot of lippage even with leveling clips. Is this why its not seen much indoors (in my experience)?
This was my first mud float and tile project for that matter so go easy on me. I was puckering putting in that left tile that goes around the "door" frame, was down to literally the last tile so I really didn't want to snap it off at that little 1" section.
>>2715141
Neat. Some of those 3rdies can do impressive work with shite tools and conditions.

>>2714943
a stone low in a wall is often left rough
as style its called rustication
degrees of finish as the courses rise is just design
basic archi-stuff

>>2713832
How does stone "rot"?

>>2714968
>Crema marfil
This is the kind of shit I would never discover on my own. Thanks for the tips.

>>2714476
Just wanted to commend you for this post, it's always been obvious from these threads that you have a well grounded outlook on what you do and are secure in your self esteem without needing to boast or self aggrandize...

But this one really serves as a counter to the endless bashing of tradespeople and honest work that goes on here, and the idea that manual labor and working for others is of no value beyond monetary gains.

The difference between just making money and also getting a sense of fulfillment really just comes down to attitude- its obvious that you take pride and joy in helping people to realize their dream home plans, and in helping them solve problems that's youvsay can be devastating for people of modest means. It's not curing cancer, but it can change people's lives significantly, even when it's just spending a little extra time you don't absolutely need to to make sure someone is happy or at least feels like they have some help. I'd add these threads into that category, BTW.

It's also obvious that you do this without any bitterness towards people with the money to afford nice things, or contempt for those who aren't as well off, and treat them all like human beings.

It's amazing what can happen when you work and see the world this way, and it's sad to see how many people steadfastly refuse to believe that people like you exist, and heap shit on tradespeople, contractors and honest work in general.

>>2714476

>Chatty old customers

Tile anon here who posted above. I have been through this so many times. What's crazy is they are lonely and want someone to talk to. All their money and they need to talk to a stranger so badly.

In my head I always think "Is talking to them worth it because they might tip me or refer me to another customer? Or should I shut them up and tell them I need to work?"

I have told multiple customers over the years to stop talking to me so that I can work.

>>2712714

where the fuck do I find cheap but good quartzite. I want to back light stone walls and stairs and shit.

Hey OP, look what I made!
It's a football! I chiseled it!

>>2713841
>>2714188
>>2714476
>>2715130
cool thread OP
more interesting job stories please

>>2715968
On a job right now maybe tonight I'll have a few for you

>>2715713
>Chatty customer
Eh, you chat cus you're human on the moral end of the slectrum. You chat as an investment in them liking you and recommending you on the business end.

>>2715658
Moisture getting trapped will usually force its way out through the minerals it can attack. So those weaker bonds between chunks in the stone will start to push out. Obviously it's not "rot" in the traditional sense, but the stone grains degrades so much it basically crumbles away. I see this on floors that were waxed, coated or treated to a crystalization method of polishing (old school). All which trap moisture. Stone must breathe and to achieve this means investing in very high quality sealers with a fine polymer.

>>2715687
Just doing my job. Being a good man in life tends to make my own life better, I extend this into the work place. I also happen to be the last person in a house most of the time, so I end up picking up a lot of the slack of other trades so the home owner doesn't need to call another three people in to do something a microfiber and a magic eraser could remedy.

>>2715680
Np

>>2715731
Cheap, good, whole slab - pick two (in most cases). Backlight variety of quartzite is usually precious white quartzite. 9/10 material, high brittleness but workable compared to even harder material. Non acid reactive howver plagued with resin based polishing techniques from factory. This is a topic for another time.

>>2715783
Looks heavy

Op here. This anon became very relevant this week >>2713612

>Be me. On a job, dumb installer installed a wide joint marble tile with sanded grout
>Floor was ground before so I didn't think much of it
>Grind floor. Three stages. Took entire day
>Start polishing
>Sand got in one of my diamonds. Scratches everywhere
>TFW you lose an entire day and have to regrind with a different type of diamond because you can't polish away the scratches

Extremely frustrated tileanon.

>>2715980
>Looks heavy
It's even official size....but not official weight!

How were the pyramids made?

>>2715968
I don't really know how good or not these stories are, but you asked.

>Degenerate son
Working away in a snazzy penthouse, apparently alone. Random dude comes out of a bedroom, screaming why the fuck we are there - shoving chairs and pushing furniture just losing his shit. We hustle out and call the home owner. Turns out his son was on drugs and on some kind of bender, showed up sometime before we arrived and passed out. Owner was pretty embarrassed.

>Ex KGB
One of my clients has one eye, is around 7 feet and walks around with a giant magnifying glass to point things out. He spent the first half of his life in the KGB doing god knows what. He's really into his backyard, plants etc. After working for him a few times I couldn't get a read on him, I could tell he was a good guy but very very rough oldschool Russian. I was in the area and thought it would be a good idea to go into his yard, steal some apples and send him a photo. He thought it was hilarious. I'm to date the only person allowed in his home unsupervised.

>Kimono Lady
Shes I guess quasi famous, not an actress but a VIP. I've never been in her house and she wasn't in a beautiful kimono. I go there to fix her marble and... wax the inside of her black toilets. Thats right, she calls a plumber in to drain the toilets, then I put a quick layer of paste wax in the bowl, buff it off with some steel wool and thats it. She says she likes the way the water rounds up. $350/toilet

>Mila Jovovich
Be me, doing service calls in a high end new development. Have a list of units, knock on the door, Mila opens up. I act like I don't know who she is and just behave normally "Hi I'm Anon, I'm here to fix your stone, should take at most an hour". I fixed some chips around the stove, did a bit of silicone and we shared niceties. Half way through a flurry of people managing the site freak out that I'm there, apologizing to her. She didn't care, I didn't care, I finished, I left. Uneventful.

more...

>>2715968
>Tell your boss...
Be me, just started my company, ~25 at the time. I was told by the stone fabricator to take a look at what was at the time the most expensive unit sold in the area. I go in, take a look at the areas needing work and meet the designer/ head contractor. The contractor was extremely rude to me, I was explaining the process when he just ups and tells me something like "This is serious shit, tell your boss not to send kids to quote jobs". I shit you not, I nodded to him, apologized and told him to give the owner a call - hand him my business card. He calls me a few hours later, has no idea its me, I got the job. We meet on site a few weeks later and he straight up asked me if it was me who he talked to, I told him yes, I was the boss. He was a cunt and I don't think he does much these days.

>Kramer
I once did a job for a pretty scary mob boss. He was legit 4'10, old, and extremely angry. He had a silent pony tailed henchman with him everywhere he went, legit like a movie. He heard I was good with color and wanted me to make every vein in his stone floor disappear, no matter the cost. This entails taking a dremel to the epoxy seams and removing the vein color, replacing it with the right shade of vein and then shaving it smooth. The kicker here is that when I met him, he told me I reminded him of Kramer (I look nothing like Kramer). He called me Kramer for 6 days straight. I never corrected him.

>Island work
Not really a story, but example of the hustle. I have a client who is a VIP and doesn't want anyone to know when he is in or out of his properties. He has a place that is ~100 million on a small island on a lake in the woods. Typically I get a call from his right hand guy, told where to be and at what time and always less than 24hrs notice. Last call was "be at this place (2 hours away) at 6am, there will be a boat waiting. Literally had to pack up my job, get ready, leave my house at 3:45am and got home at 8pm.

>>2712896
There is a huge HUGE difference between looking flat and being flat enough to be used as a reference.

>>2716201

More please! I have already had some crazy stories as a resi side jobber electrician. I will post one or two tomorrow

>>2712996
I've been there. Those thinks are even more impressive in person. They fit together in a sort tongue and groove like fashion.

Anyway, the short answer is you need a fuck ton of low paid workers and a few decades.

>>2715968
>straight faced
This happened to me.. three times? I can think of. Basically a client with a wild house, but I have to act like it's not the first time I walked into a place with 400 cactus plants that looked like penises and penis sculptures and penis art all over the walls. You'd expect a "don't mind all the dicks" but nooo it's just straight faced normal "take a look at my shower" so you spend like, 4 days in a house just wondering if it's ever going to be talked about, and you KNOW at dinner hes having a laugh that "the tradie didn't bring up the dicks" while chatting up his pals. Anyways. So far it was that, a guy with thousands of pictures/sculptures of elephants - from baseboard to crown molding, tens of thousands probably, his towels were folded like elephants, his mailbox was an elephant, he drove a grey car with an elephant something vanity plate.... Also the dude who was really into mannequins, like a bunch in every room posed and all, but no clothes or anything, just a bunch of cool (some were glass) mannequins.

Oh, and the pedophile. Worked for a guy who was super creepy. Kids toys all over, really awkward conversations, just felt really creepy. After I left I googled him and found out he was a sex offender who had just served a serious sentence. I don't remember the charges or wtv but he was I guess a very rich sex offender.

>>2716110
I'm not sure, I wouldn't underestimate humans + time. I'm almost more impressed by things like picrel.

>>2712714
Have you ever seen sonebody cut themselves on pieces of broken granite/stone or heard horror stories of this?

>>2716230
Yeah, I've cut myself many times on shards of shattered stone. Recently was drilling hardware into a slab for a full stone vanity, picrel style, hard ass quartzite. I guess I pushed too hard it literally exploded in my face and acted like glass. I had to jigsaw it all together since each drawer was cut from one slab, losing one drawer was maybe 15-20k of stone, so I picked the pieces up, glued them back with a color matched epoxy and ground it back and polished. I've also seen a couple slabs break on a natural vein/fischer while suspended from a crane in the shop. Nothing like a slab 1500lb slab of granite landing on its side, flopping over and just breaking into chunks when it hits the floor, slow motion. I always hide when people are moving slabs. Besides that nobody I know has died or lost a finger from stone.

>>2716219
I walled onto a porn set in malibu to get some set top boxes for the cable company. Was actually really boring because they made me want half an hour in their driveway.

At one point they asked me to stop idling my truck. Naw. It's a hot day, I need the AC and fans and radio. If I turn it off I'm gonna need a jump start. Better just leave it on. Then they finally brought the boxes out. I think they were still setting up. Just a bunch of people and some hit chick's and a sunken orgy bed in the living room.

Another gut said he went into a gut with hundreds/thousands of molds of vaginas on the wall. He was an artist and would take a mold of any woman's vagina that would let him. I'm not sure what he's going for there or of it's just a game that worked for him, and once you get a couple dozen you must be a legit pro so your success rate goes up.

>>2712714
Any idea what this kitchen counter material is? If so, any warnings for stains, chips, etc? I can get better pictures bu Monday or Tuesday.

>>2712714
>>2716410

>>2716410
Based on the patterning id wager strongly it's either a Caesarstone/silestone type (quartz aggregate material, man made) or possibly a corian. Its not a marble unless it was recently restored I'd see some form of damage and granites don't typically have that patterning when they are light tones. Usually chunks (eg cashmere white granite).

One tip is to get a look under the sink or anywhere under the slab and look for a barcode, Caesarstone for example has a black zigzag barcode printed randomly on the backside.

Tips? Metal belt buckles, pots and pans will leave grey marks on the edges. You can use a magic eraser to remove them but never hit the actual top with one. Or if you do be gentle, magic erasers are essentially sandpaper, its why they work so well. Other than than have an "island" for food prep, a cutting board or something where you can spin a porcelain pot around and not leave scratches. 9/10 scratches on aggregates are from porcelain dishes or bowls catching the surface.

>>2712714
I was interested in trace elements (the nutrient type) and wanted to see if there were river rocks I could grind up to increase the certain deficiencies in my soil. The problem is that trace elements mean something else in geology. Any tips on how to go about this? As the name would imply, I don't need them pure or in high quantity.

>>2716422
thanks based stoner autist

>>2716445
Just buy bulk azomite

For me, it's microcline.

>>2712714
If i was to carve messages, coordinates and whatnot on football sized rocks and bury them about 5 feet underground, where im sure nobody will dig any time soon, how long would the carvings or rocks themselves last? I did it years ago with round and smooth river rocks. Will the carvings be good to read in lets say the next 3000 years?

>>2716593
Based Dorf

>>2712714
do you wear a respirator? lots of niggas dying from cutting that shit

>>2716606
Frost can push rocks out.

>>2716606
Depends on the stone. If I wanted to do this I'd probably use a chunk of black granite and soak it in oil or diesel or something before burying it. Would make it rich black and maybe stop penetration of moisture/bacteria that can break down the stone. Limestone and marble - no chance.

>>2717024
I wear one like picrel. But it's not for cutting, I use water when I grind, if I'm doing epoxy I wear a normal p100 and if I'm sanding epoxy on mitres dry I wear the picrel with dust filters over the p100 one for organic vapors.

In June I had a bathroom with maybe 300 linear feet of vertical mitres to do, all of it color matched (so when the veins change I had to color match). Once filled I knock it back to a delicate radius and sand 120g, 200g, 400g 600g. The shitty part was wearing full face respirator, gloves, a beanie and a hoodie to keep the dust out of my hair. The bathroom was steady 89 degrees, asshole didn't put an ac unit in yet. It was horrible, my gloves would just fill with sweat and fingers wrinkle.

>>2717032
>Mitres
I use this term a lot, so people understand. Picrel is a mitre, two slabs get installed with a 45 cut. Sometimes you are lucky and that gap is 2mm, other times it's a half inch of distance and you need to cover that up. Basically you mix your epoxy to the right color, tape off the two sides of the fill, slap some. Epoxy in there and then sand it all carefully to throw a round edge on it (since it's extremely sharp). You then smoothen it until it has a bit of sheen and soft to the touch. The hardest part is not hitting the face of the material. In picrel that's porcelain, hitting the face = removing the print, so it's really nerve wracking. With stone you know if you hit the face there's just more stone and you could in theory repair it, but with porcelain that's it, it's gone.