Scribing
Transferring an irregular surface onto a workpiece so it fits tight against it — baseboard to a wavy floor, a slab to a boulder, a board to rough stone — plus the rules that apply whatever you're fitting.
Set a Heavy Landing Stone Perfectly by Bedding It on Ice and Letting It Melt
Shims under a 1,600-pound granite landing have to come back out, and a prybar under a set stone will move more than you want. Set the stone down on blocks of ice instead — as they melt the stone lowers itself into the bed at its own pace.
set a granite step, how to bed a heavy stone, get shims out from under a stone, landing stone won't sit level, mason ice trick
Warning: This is a technique for setting stone that already has to be moved by machine. A 1,600-pound granite landing is placed by excavator or skid steer with rated rigging, and a stone that size crushes anything under it. The ice trick doesn't make the placement safer — it only removes the step where you go back under a set stone to pull shims. If you don't already have the equipment and the rigging experience, this is not the part of the job to learn on.
The Problem
A granite landing or step has to end up bedded evenly on its base, at the right height and pitch. But you can't lower a stone that heavy slowly enough to place it by feel — the machine sets it down, and wherever it lands is where it is.
The usual answer is shims: set the stone on wood or steel packers, check it, adjust, then remove the packers so the stone beds fully. That last step is the bad one. Getting a shim back out from under 1,600 pounds means either lifting the stone again or working a prybar into a gap you're kneeling next to, and any prying that succeeds tends to move the stone off the position you just spent twenty minutes getting right.
The Technique
Bed the stone on ice and let the shims disappear on their own.
- Prepare and screed the setting bed under the landing as normal.
- Place blocks of ice on the bed where you'd otherwise put packers, enough to hold the stone at its starting height.
- Set the stone down onto the ice with the machine and unhook.
- Walk away. As the ice melts, the stone settles straight down into the bed — evenly, because the blocks lose height together, and slowly enough that the bedding material takes its shape.
Nothing has to come back out, and nobody puts a bar or a hand under a set stone.
Pro tip: This buys you time more than anything else. A stone on ice is a stone you can still look at from twenty feet away, walk around, and check against the treads above it while it's coming down — instead of committing the moment the rigging goes slack.
Why This Isn't Done More Often
It only works in the right weather. Ice that melts in ten minutes doesn't give the bed time to take the load evenly, and ice that doesn't melt at all leaves you waiting on a thaw before the landing is finished. This is a trick from masons in Maine, in a climate where the melt rate is something you can plan around.
Safety note: Nothing goes under the stone while it's coming down — not a hand, not a tool, not a level. Treat the whole time the ice is melting as time the stone is still being placed. And keep the setting bed and the ice off any path a person would walk: a hard surface under a melting block is exactly as slippery as it sounds.
DIYsolvr helps you find the best DIY videos. Browse all 526 techniques