San Francisco Dry Stone Walling Workshop

This west coast DSWAC beginners workshop was completed in two days and included 35 feet of hands-on straight walling,a circular stone planter surround and a small dry stone arch (just for fun).

 

 

This workshop utilized a beautiful rounded stone, called Fantasy River Stone, which comes from a large stockpile of surface stones which originally were removed from the river beds of historic California "gold country" by Chinese workers. The stone is difficult to shape, but has some natural flatness which allows it to be used in a structural and aesthetically pleasing dry stone application. Very few stones were shaped in the teaching of this course. Appropriately, the stone is a local stone and can be purchased a slightly lower cost than imported stone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Students gathered together and built this small dry stone arch at the last part of the workshop.

 

None of these arch stones were shaped or tooled. No form was used. The stones were chosen from a random pallet of stone made available by American Soil and Stone. The stones were fitted and held in place by everyone until the garden arch structure was completed and could stand on its own.