When a huge stone was uncovered while excavating for an addition my son Robert is building, we got out our fastest rock drill and some ancient tools called plug and feather wedges. You can see the situation in the video above, and how the plug and feather wedges did what seems impossible.
I hope you found this content useful!
Your generous support helps me produce more practical, hands-on content that I hope you’ll find useful.
Steve Maxwell
Building products are always getting better, and that goes especially for items made for finishing basement. Insul-Armor is an up-and-coming subfloor product that does a number of things exceptionally well. It’s light in weight, it cuts easily with a knife,…
One of the things I learned after I moved to the very rural Manitoulin Island, Canada back in the mid-1980s was traditional stoneworking. I’d never done it before coming here and I’ve never seen anyone else do structural stonework in…
Question: We’ve just gone to a lot of trouble and expense installing drainage tiles around our basement, but we’re concerned it might not stop dampness and white, fuzzy efflorescence coming up through the concrete floor. We’re planning to finish the…
On July 1, 1987, my wife and I began building in a way I’d never seen anyone else do in real life. Without anyone available to teach us the details of traditional stonework for the basement we wanted to build,…
Most people associate electrical substations with large, fenced-off structures, that don’t look great, are potentially dangerous, and with possible health hazards. But the reality is different. Contrary to common belief, substations provide a lot of advantages to a neighborhood. Let’s…
Steve Maxwell, Canada’s Handiest Man, raves about Dulux’s Inspirations, a tool that allows homeowners to match paint colours.