Types of Dressing of Stones
The different types of dressing of stones are,
1. Hammer Dressed or Quarry-faced Surface
2. Rough tooled surface
3. Tooled Surface
4. Cut stone Surface
5. Rubbed Surface
6. Polished Surface
The details of types of dressing of stones are as follows,
1. Hammer Dressed or Quarry-faced Surface:
This is the roughest form of surface finish. Stone as removed from the quarry has large projections which are knocked off with the quarry hammer and it is finally broken up into blocks of suitable size and shape such as khandki, quoin, or rectangular blocks, The faces of the blocks arc roughly planned and the stone is rendered suitable to be used in masonry. When used in a wall, the roughly finished surfaces arc further modified by forming a 2 cm. to 5 cm. wide margin about the edges of the exposed face.
2. Rough tooled surface:
In this type of surface finish, the projection of the stone block are removed by means of chisels and the surface is nearly dressed true. The corners and the edges are made accurate, chisel draughted margins sunk and the side and bed joints roughly treated to ensure proper bonding.
3. Tooled Surface:
In this type of surface finish continuous parallel chisel marks are produced throughout the width of the stone. The parallel corrugations or chisel marks are made at closer intervals rendering the surface truly planned. Different types of tooled finishes are obtained by use of different chisel and marking patterns.
4. Cut stone Surface:
In this type of surface finish the surface is dressed by using a, sharp chisel so that the chisel marks are practically imperceptible. It is considered superior to tooled surface.
5. Rubbed Surface:
This type of surface finish is obtained by grinding or rubbing a cut stone surface by hand or machine until it gets perfectly smooth.
6. Polished Surface:
The rubbed surfaces of granite, marble of lime stones are polished to enhance their texture. Polishing may be done by manual labour using sand and water, pumice stone etc. or by rubbing machine.