Thursday 10 September 2009

Stone me.

Over the last few years I have become quite handy working with stone and given another few years I may actually know what I am doing. The crafty Luccans however have already mastered the art of bending stone...in fact not only bending it but giving it a good twist. I always stop for a sit in the sun below the window shown and muse for a few moments on its intriguingly warped form. Most tourists hurry past on the way to the Guinigi tower but this simple window architrave always has my attention...clever these Italians.

11 comments:

Candle said...

I don't quite understand - how do you 'bend' stone? Is it something like, "take concrete...build it up on the left side while slowly shearing away the right side as it sets...keep moving left...shearing right..." or am I completely crazy?

Thud said...

I still can't quite figure out how this has happened...it is stone and not a composite yet it twists in two planes...clever stuff.

Sen. C.R.O'Blene said...

Thuds - that's marvellous!

Probably they didn't bind the two together in the first place, but easily done - if you don't have the tools...

Can't get too serious about this as it still looks great! Why straight lines on old buildings?

I was on a job at the awful shopping centre in Chatham several years ago. The agent said that the bwk was out of line - and so it was...

Sorted with a bit of TLC and a few strokes of rendering I recall...

Thud said...

Scrobs... Ah!render hides a multitude of ills, thank goodness.

Putz said...

my boy just did a lousy concrete job on my drive....once a slab has pitted, is there anyway at all to refinished it again so it will last in =35 degree weather and scrapping?????

Thud said...

Putz....knowing a little of weather in Utah I would say that getting a new surface to bond and not delaminate would be very difficult indeed.

Opus #6 said...

Now I need to google the word scouser.

Electro-Kevin said...

If you can't bend stone then it must have been carved that way.

Clever stuff indeed. Or perhaps it was done by an apprentice with a wonky eye and the mason didn't know where else to put it.

James Higham said...

Is that bent stone or bent concrete?

Tim Leatherbarrow said...

Are these your holiday photos? Where are all the ones of you being sick in a Luccan gutter and being thrown out of local boozers? Your an English holiday maker, we do have standards to maintain.
Tim

Thud said...

James...it is the local stone and the pic doesn't do justice to just how bent it is.
Tim...my workie chaps more than made up for my lack of over indulgence.