Where's me maul?

Ten weeks and one day after starting the sett paving project at The Old Croft in Knutsford, the very last sett was laid, and now the jointing, which will take around 3 or 4 days, begins.

Four different sett patterns have been used over the nearly 500m² of paving: guilloche, radial, transverse broken bond and fans each make a contribution to the overall design, showing off the best in craftsmanship as well as bringing out the best in the stone, not to mention the stunning property itself.

Choosing the jointing was a tricky decision. The sheer cost of the project to date, including the money paid for the aborted first attempt by the Cheshire Cowboy Crew, urge caution when it comes to jointing, and there’s not much that is cheaper than a sand/cement slurry. However, such an option would cost far more in terms of labour, and then there’s the lengthy post-jointing cleaning process that is never 100% successful when working with cement products.

Resin mortars are significantly faster to apply, and have the advantage of leaving the pavement surface in pristine condition with no stains or blemishes, but they ain’t particularly cheap. However, it seems silly to spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar at this stage, so it was decided, through gritted teeth (and mixed metaphors), to bite the bullet and go with the resin mortar. After a lengthy discussion, UK supplier of Romex mortars, McMonagle Stone, came up with a fair price for the several tonnes of mortar that would be needed to fill the gaps between all those setts (Cookie from The Original Stone Paving Co. reckons there’s close on 48,000 of the buggers!).

So Tuesday saw the start of the long process, starting with the central circle and the guilloche and over the course of an artificially short day, completing somewhere around 100m² before knocking-off time. Jointing continues, and should be finished by the end of the week - look out for more photos at the start of next week......

# posted by cormaic @ 9:57 PM