In 1979 Jim Bambridge was starting to establish an apprentice program and a working stoneyard. He knew he needed a few good machines. Machinery had to be acquired to handle the giant blocks of stone arriving on a flatbed from the Indiana quarry. 20th century time and money saving technology supplemented the medieval crafts.
The 67-year-old giant planer removes excess stone from complex pieces. It had been lying beside an abandoned railroad track at the quarry for years. The planer was a rusty hulk with bushes and weeds growing through it. In a nearby pasture they found the big 60-inch circular saw.
“Such machines are hard to find anywhere today, so we salvaged them, had them steam cleaned and rebuilt with parts cannibalized from similar old wrecks we found here and there”
-James Bambridge
The 8-foot diamond toothed reciprocating saw is the only new item. It slices the huge quarry blocks. Bambridge had the saw made to his specifications in Scotland.
Using The Machines
How these devices fit in the scheme of things becomes clear when a flatbed from the quarry arrives. There a two 8-10 ton blocks measuring about 4’x4’x12′. An overhead crane unloads and moves a block to a tracked dolly under the reciprocating saw. The long diamond toothed blade rocks back and forth across the stone, cooled by water pouring through the kerf.
As each slab is freed, one every three to four hours, it is moved to the nearby circular saw. The whirling diamond blade cuts rough building block sizes. If it is to be a moulded column base or section, it goes ahead to the planer. At the planer, it rides a platform that carries it under specially forged blades. These blades peel away excess stone between the high contours. They remove a quarter of an inch per five-second run.
Once these few good machines have finished their work, the blocks are ready for the stonecutters. They and their tools then face and shape them. These tools include everything from the wide boaster to oddly shaped devices with names like waster, punch, cockscomb, quirk and point. There are some 60 weird tools, many handed down from the Middle Ages through generations of stonemen.
- Popular Mechanics, August 1983