Andy B
Joined:
13-02-2001
Messages: 12290
from Surrey, UK
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|  Posted 28-02-2017 at 20:11
Nancy Wisser from Clonehenge sent me this in 2009 and I've just found it in a lost corner of my email archive. There are some photos as well if someone would like to add them (email me if you'd like to see them)
In August of 2007, Earthwood Building School (West Chazy, NY) hosted an International Megalithics Conference (MegaCo/07). Stone builder Gordon Pipes came over from England and demonstrated his “rowing the stones” technique and others, while Vince Lee from Colorado shared his experiments with moving and fitting stones Incan style.
The highlight of the 5-day conference, though, was the raising of the 5.2-ton capstone of the Earthwood Trilithon (known as Stone C), using methods that could have been used by Neolithic people. This project was organized and conducted by Earthwood’s Rob Roy (Stone Circles: A Modern Builder’s Guide to the Megalithic Revival), Ivan McBeth (probably the world’s foremost stone circle builder), and Doug Kerr, an experienced stone mover who takes an engineer’s approach to the subject. A dozen attendees assisted in the project, as well as the demonstrations of Gordon Pipes.
Stones A and B had been raised by hand at previous workshops at Earthwood, in 2003 and 2005. In fact, Stones A, B and C, all about 11’3 long and each weighing over 5 tons, had once been a single 16.5-ton stone of almost 34 feet in length. Rob and Jaki Roy had purchased the stone at Rock of Ages Quarry in Barre, Vermont, and had the stonecutters there divide the stone into three equal parts. The narrowness of the stone - known in engineering parlance as “slenderness ratio” - precluded raising the stone as a single very tall monolith; there was a real danger that the stone would snap under the strain of raising it. But, as three matched members of a trilithon, the stone was perfect.
Kerr, McBeth and Roy worked with a one-sixth scale wooden model to work out the moves of how Stone C could be elevated over eight feet above the ground, and then slid, on a ramp greased with lard, onto the uprights, themselves socketed solidly three feet into the ground.
Prior to the conference, the team experimented with using the stone’s own weight to maximize mechanical advantage. Rob and Jaki Roy had learned the technique 10 years earlier from Cliff Osenton in England, a technique that has been popularized by stone mover Wally Wallington of Michigan. ( http://www.theforgottentechnology.com ). In essence, the method involves working very close to the center axis of the stone. Osenton points out that a stone has an infinite number of axes passing through the center of gravity, and that you can use any of them to advantage. Think of a see-saw at the playground. You could have a twenty-ton stone balance on a pivot point so accurately that a child could rock it. But it is dangerous to work too close to the pivot point, because the megalith could slip and come crashing down. So, with Stone C, we always tried to work with a 16” wide platform, itself supported by a 24” wide support made of heavy timbers.
Where is the gain, you may ask? Well, when you are working within ten percent of the transverse axis, the stone’s own weight - say, on the right - offsets the weight to the left of this axis. On a five-ton stone, these offsetting ends of the see-saw effectively means that you only have to add human strength to only 10 to 20 percent of the load, maybe a half ton to a ton, depending on how close you work to the center. Always, we had a stack of wood to serve as a “safety.” If the stone decided to take an unfortunate shift, the safety stack would limit any potential tumble to two or three inches, a point from which the stone could be retrieved. In the actual event, the safety never came in to play, but we always felt good that it was there.
Using long levers strapped to Stone C for additional mechanical advantage, we would rock the stone one way, and install a one-by-four inch hardwood shim about eight inches from the center of gravity. Then we would rock the stone the other way and slip in a shim on the other side. With each lift, then, we would gain an inch or two in height. In all, we had to lift the stone about 100 inches, over eight feet, frequently rebuilding the stack in a way that we had worked out on the model.
A week later: final adjustment.
ramp until it was over supported by the two standing stones. We worked almost till dark and stopped. The stone was safe, but not quite in the right juxtaposition over A and B. But the conference was over, and we had done it.
A week later, Jaki and I set up new stacks of wood, levers and fulcrums. With a dozen friends helping, and using Gordon’s rowing method, we easily shifted the stone to the west about 14 inches, and now it sits perfectly, looking a lot like one of the Stonehenge horseshoe trilithons. The capstone, though, is about the same size and weight - 5.2 tons - as one of the original 30 lintels of the Saracen circle.
The completed trilithon acts as a gateway into Earthwood Building School, West Chazy, New York.
For more information, visit the Big
Stones website, http://www.bigstones.com
It's something we mentioned in 2007 here
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146413059
More links
http://www.bigstones.com/MegaCo07/megaco07.html
http://www.daycreek.com/dc/html/dcrobroy1.htm
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