I should've really done this at the beginning but today i'm going to make the 'Batter Frames' which are used to get the correct cross section of the wall. Luckily my brother has a mania for hoarding bits of wood so it was easy to find a few nice bits to use (thanks IKEA)
You need to make the sides of the wall slope inwards towards the top so when the stones settle in to place they will move inwards (good) instead of outwards (bad). The ancient formula is that the base is half of the height and the top is half of the base. I'm cheating ever so slightly, height = 42", base = 18", top = 12". Pray Let the walling gods favour my maverick miniaturisation.
One end in and it's looking good! I hammered steel pins into the ground to hold it in place. When I was attaching the pins to the frame with tape I felt a bit like I was betraying the traditions and should've been using twine or something.
The other end was a bit trickier as there is a 3 foot drop into next door's garden. Luckily there was some hefty fenceposts found behind the shed so I hammered them in and screwed the frame on.
All strung up and ready to go. The string at the top shows the eventual height of the wall - there's a long way to go! Got a birthday party tonight and then village carboot sale in the morning but after that i'm going to spend the whole day at it.
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