The coverage a ton this stonemason got, beside the tag, and what the wall cost a square foot

AThe wall, at a glance

Recorded for Cotswold random walling on Garden wall at the Mill House.

The figure this sheet exists for is the one a pallet tag cannot give you: the coverage your own stone, at your own joint, on your own wall, actually reached, printed beside the figure you were quoted and used to size the next order. Print this sheet

Printed from otherworldlabs.com, the stonemason's wall log.

BThe wall, and the figures you were quoted

The two quoted figures are yours to read off the pallet tag and the mortar sack. This sheet carries no coverage figure, no bag figure and no joint of its own, and it never fills one in for you.

CThe stone the yard delivered, and where it went

Kept one pile? Put the whole pile in the tons that never reached the wall and leave the culled-at-the-pallet figure blank. Every figure on this page is unchanged: the two fates print as one line labelled as both.

DThe invoice, the hours, and the next wall

Your own rate, your own invoice. No rate, price or hour is suggested here.

EWhere every ton of the delivery went

Five fates, and the row labels name all five whether or not you kept the culled stone and the offcut apart. Keep one pile and the two print as one line labelled as both; keep them apart and they print as two.

FQuoted, and what this crew got

The quoted column is the figure you typed off the tag and the sack. The gap column prints how far the wall landed from it, as a figure and as a share of the quoted figure, with the word beside it saying which way.

GThe next wall, at the rate you got

Sized at the coverage the stone consumed on this wall, not at the quoted figure. A part pallet is left as a part pallet: whether the yard will break one is a question for the yard.

HEvery figure, worked

The stone, and what the wall carries of it.

Mortar, sand, hours, and the wall.

The tonnage, the coverage, and the next order.

IHow the figures are read

The pile

The stone that never reached the face and was neither credited nor carried away: culled at the pallet, or lost as offcut and breakage while laying. One figure is enough for every figure this sheet prints, because the stone in the face is the delivery with the pile, the return and the part pallet taken off it. Splitting the pile refines one row of the fates table and nothing else.

Culled stone and offcut stone

Two events in the record and one event in the arithmetic. Both are stone you paid for that never reached the face and came back as neither credit nor carried stock, so each of them lifts the cost a square foot and cuts the coverage a ton, and no figure on this sheet can tell them apart. They are named apart because one is stone the yard sent that you could not use and one is stone your own crew cut or broke, and a season of the two tells you different things.

Coverage a ton consumed

The measured face divided by the tons the wall consumed, which is the delivery with the return and the part pallet taken off it. This is the figure to order the next wall at: the pile is in it, because a pallet of this stone at this joint arrives with the culls and the offcut it arrives with.

Coverage a ton in the face

The measured face divided by the tons that reached it. This is the figure to read the stone itself by, with the waste taken out of the way. It is dashed, never estimated, while the pile is blank.

Bags a hundred square feet

The bags you used, divided by the measured face, for one hundred square feet of it. Your joint width and your bed are in this figure and in nothing else here, which is why the joint is recorded on the sheet.

The credit, and the part pallet

Stone sent back leaves this wall's cost at your price a ton, with the yard's own deduction taken off the credit. Good stone left whole on a part pallet also leaves this wall's cost, at your price a ton and with nothing deducted, because it is standing in your yard for the next job and is not lost. Both are printed as their own lines.

The overrun

The tons by which the pile, the return and the part pallet together run past the delivery. It is arithmetically impossible on a real wall, so the sheet reads it as a typing error: it prints the tons of the excess, holds the glance figures back, and dashes the share column, so no share of the delivery runs past a hundred.

JThe four cases the arithmetic does not settle

Each of these is yours to decide, and none of them is decided here. The options are set out and the sheet prints whichever reading you type.

A wall of two stones

A wall laid in two products has two tags and two coverage figures. You may record it as two walls, each with its own face area and its own tonnage, or as one wall at the product that carries most of it, with the second product's tonnage in the pile. The first keeps both coverage figures; the second keeps one wall in the log. This sheet takes one product at a time.

A part pallet that is used on the next wall, or in a year

Stone carried away leaves this wall's cost whole. Where it is laid next week, the next wall carries it at that price a ton, and your log shows the pallet twice for one lot of money, once as carried away and once as delivered. Where it stands in the yard for a year, some stonemasons write it down to nothing at the year's end and carry the cost on the wall that paid for it. Either is a decision about your own books.

Stone the yard credits in part, or not at all

A yard may credit returned stone whole, credit it with a deduction, credit it against the next order only, or refuse it. The sheet takes the deduction as a percent and prints the credit it leaves. A credit held against a future order is money you have not got yet: some stonemasons type it as zero on this wall and carry it in the log as a note against the yard.

A wall cut from two deliveries

Where a second load arrives mid-wall, the tons and the invoice lines add up to one delivery for this sheet, and the two tickets stay in the log. Where the second load is another pallet of that product at another price a ton, the honest figure is the money: add the two invoices and type the price a ton that the whole tonnage comes to.

KWhat this sheet will not do

• It names no coverage, no yield, no bag count, no joint and no dimension as the right one. Every such figure on it is one you read off a tag, a sack, an invoice or a drawing and typed in, and arithmetic is the only thing the sheet adds.
• It says nothing about what a wall should be sold for, and it holds no figure of that kind: there is no figure of its own in it at all, for any stone, any yard or any trade.
• It holds one finished wall and keeps nothing. Close the page and the figures are gone; the two files sold beside it are what carry a season of walls.
• It says nothing about how a wall is built or specified, nothing about the paperwork a job has to carry, and nothing about how stone is worked on site. It is a record of tons, bags, hours and money after the fact.
• It reads nothing in from anywhere. No figure on it came from a supplier, a table or a survey, because there is no such figure in it.