Monday, January 31, 2011

Rocks for Bob Lockhart and friends


Earlier this month, we had a visit from Bob Lockhart, who used to head the art department at Bellarmine College. He wanted a large stone to carve for this year's Yew Dell Outdoor Sculpture show. He brought out Chris Mozier, one of his students, who wanted a large piece of stone, as well. Chris came out to the studio this Saturday to drill and split a 7,000 lb. piece into 3 parts - one for him, one for Bob, and one piece for Mike McCarthy.

Chris drilled the 2 series of holes where he wanted to split the larger piece.

This was one of the first warm days of the year, and I'd been making the dust fly. (That would account for the 'Geisha look').

He set the rest of the wedges, hammered them to bring up the pressure and...

...split the stone into 3 pieces.

The next day he came back with Mike McCarthy (on the left), who brought his truck. It would have been simple to load up the stones, if my own crane truck would run - but I couldn't get it to start. A neighbor, Mike Hutchison, helped me out by bringing over his tractor. His son, Tristan, is guiding Mike to set his forks.

Many hands make light work.

The tractor couldn't load the 3,000 lb. piece into the truck, but it could move it under my gantry crane. Where there's a will, there's a way.

That's Mike McCarthy setting the rigging under the stone. Check out his art and fine furniture on his website http://www.trinity-designs.net.

Up, up and....

...away. A 3,000 lb. piece of stone is on its way to Bob Lockhart's studio.

I'd been stuck inside a lot, doing computer work. It was good to get out and walk. Meg and I took a short hike to Big Cave Hollow in the Yellowbank Wildlife Management Area.

Confusing Turkey tracks. Is he coming or going? (all photos copyright Meg White).

1 comment:

Jean Jacques said...

I always wanted to that kind of thing, doing the mans job... by the way photos are great...


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