Our cabin came with beautiful stone walls...that are not very sturdy. :shake: They are falling apart as my ds walks on the tops of them, or even just from the freeze/thaw cycles here. I'm looking for resources on learning how to do dry stone work. Anyone done it and can share tips, or know of web resources? My searches are not turning up much.

TIA! Oh and I can share photos if that would help.

for what it is worth- these are books my dh has read to work on some walls but so far he has just built a dry retaining wall so nothing free standing.

Stonework by Charles McRaven
Building Stone Walls by John Vivian
Forgotten Art of Building a Stone wall Curtis Fields
The Granite Kiss (don’t have author listed on this one)

Maybe a library or if you want to purchase find them used ( I found a couple at abebooks.com)
For online search you might want to try looking for rock quarries/suppliers, they usually have pdf files on their websites for customers who buy stone from them. You could also google the authors of dry stack books – sometimes they are cited on websites discussing how to do the walls.


http://www.the-landscape-design-site.com/directory/rockgardenwalls.html
-has a few pdf files of how to on dry stack

These are a couple stone places-not great instructions but with cut and paste and few more of these type sites you might get some good info.
home (http://www.plymouthquarries.com/HowToSolidVeneer.htm)
Luck Stone | Architectural Stone Division | Project Gallery (http://www.luckstone.com/arch/projectgallery/diy_walls/instructions.php)

Thanks so much! This is helpful.

I was waiting for my washer to get pulled from inventory yesterday at Lowe's and picked up a book on doing stone. Sorry I was not clear; I'm doing a stone retaining wall, not freestanding. Anyway I power read a bunch of tips and I think I have a bit better idea. Obviously the previous owner who did the wall did not read up on it because I now know why it's falling apart...no perpendicular ties (stones going from front to back) as the book suggested.

Most of what was in there was what I was doing by intuition, but it helped to think about being able to chisel pieces off of stones (duh!) to make them fit, and just how to structure them...