Watched a mason at an old church solve my corner problem in 10 seconds

I was helping restore a 1920s church downtown last month and got stuck on a tricky corner. Could not get my plumb bob to hang right on the uneven stone. An older guy, probably 70s, walked over from another part of the site and just looked at it. He pulled out a simple torpedo level and showed me how to work from the existing corner block instead of the line. Said I was overthinking it and trying to make the wall perfect when the old foundation was already 3/8 inch off. After he left, I tried his method and had the whole corner squared up in about 45 minutes. Has anyone else found that older masons have these little shortcuts that just aren't in any textbook?

2 comments

2 Comments

charlesowens5d agoMost Upvoted

The real secret is they stopped caring about perfect and started caring about right.

michael6935d ago

i mean, is it really that deep? sometimes you just gotta ship the thing and move on. perfect is a moving target anyway, right gets you paid.