Hiya. Im a small landscaping business owner and have been using a little kanga miniloader for the past 10 years. I've been tempted to buy a mini excavator for a few years now and have finally purchased a little brand new U17 kubota getting delivered in few days. Ive built a million timber retaining walls over the years but never a single stone wall as its really past the limits for my little miniloader for most walls, no reach etc. I would really like to get more into stone walls however have zero experience apart from what ive seen. I realise alot of it is going to just come down to experience but If anyone is willing to share any pointers for starting out and the basics im all ears, or eyes thanks in advance
Hello Immortal, I help build a couple walls when i was younger, a lot depends on what type of stone your working with, and the heigth of wall. River jack is harder to work with, other stone can be easy to dry stack. In my county anything over 6' and a permit is needed. I built a wall with granite that was over 3' at the base, and used rip-rap limestone to back fill, i used crusher run, morter and cement, all this mixing was done in a wheel barrow, hope you have a mixer.. lol The mix that i use is , 8 churser run, half bag morter, 2 shovel cemet, and another 8 crusher run, use just enough water to make a good dry mix, if you make it to wet, they use it for the back fill. Use a line to keep in straight, and move it up as you go, the way i did was to put a stake at each end , tilted back about 3% or more for a thin wall. The problem i had as a stone mason was my knees gave out, and i picked one up that was so heavy that i could have gotten a hernia, LOl.. Have fun, sam.
Lol thanks for the reply Sam. I actually bought a machine for alot of the same reason, Ive done alot of fencing and my back cant take too much hard labor these days want to get into bit less physical work. Yeah should have mentioned I think I will probably only bother with dry stack walls, I know the nice cut sandstone will be a piece of cake im more worried about how much trial and error its going to take me with the more odd shape stones. Where I am can build upto 1 metre in height without any engineering etc. I think its more just going to come down to experience and practice for me but sometimes the small tips are the ones that can help alot also cheers