The Stonemason's Guild of Valoria was granted a charter by the Emperor to be the entity responsible for all stone work within the city. The guild regulates work, pay, and crafting standards. There are three ranks (as is standard with most guilds): Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master Mason. An apprenticeship lasts for seven years, whereupon the individual completes several tests before being promoted to Journeyman. Many of the guild's secrets are not taught to the apprentices until the final years of their apprenticeship, to ensure that competitors don't steal them.
Stonemasonry Disciplines
- A quarryman splits or cuts rock in the quarry, and extracts the resulting blocks of stone. The cut or split pieces are collected and transported away from the extraction surface for further refinement.
- A sawyer stonemason cuts these stone blocks into dimension stone, to required size with saws. The resulting block if ordered for a specific component is known as sawn six sides (SSS). A sawyer mason is similar to a banker mason (see below) in that they work with rough pieces of stone and shape them according to certain standards. The main difference between a sawyer mason and a banker mason is the size of the stone they work with – a sawyer mason typically works with much larger pieces and uses diamond-coated tools. Sawyer masons may work in quarries or be found in tile or flooring stores, possessing a range of specific skills, such as examining grain patterns to determine cleavage, creating smaller stones from larger pieces, and carving precise outlines and drilling holes using various tools like chisels.
- A banker mason, sometimes referred to as a bank mason, is workshop-based, and specializes in working the stones into the shapes required by a building's design, this set out on templets and a bed mould. A banker mason uses various hand and power tools to cut, carve, and shape stone. They can produce anything from stones with simple chamfers to tracery windows, detailed mouldings and the more classical architectural building masonry. When working a stone from a sawn block, the mason ensures that the stone is bedded in the right way, so the finished work sits in the building in the same orientation as it was formed on the ground. Occasionally though some stones need to be oriented correctly for the application; this includes voussoirs, jambs, copings, and cornices. The stone's size and shape are usually predetermined by builders or other parties involved in a project, and the banker mason works according to a brief or a set of designs provided for that project. Once the stone has been crafted to the required specifications, it is transported to the construction site or another location for use in a building or other structure.
- Fixer mason specializes in the fixing of stones onto buildings, using lifting tackle, and traditional lime mortars and grouts. Sometimes modern cements, mastics, and epoxy resins are used, usually on specialist applications such as stone cladding. Metal fixings, from simple dowels and cramps to specialized single application fixings, are also used. The precise tolerances necessarily make this a highly skilled job. This type of masons has specialized into fixing the stones onto the buildings. A fixer mason is responsible for traveling to a job site to fit and lay pre-prepared stone or cladding for buildings. They might do this with grouts, mortars, and lifting tackle. They might also use things like single application specialized fixings, simple cramps, and dowels as well as stone cladding with things like epoxy resins, mastics, and modern cements.
- Memorial mason or monumental mason carve gravestones and inscriptions.
- Carver mason crosses the line from craft to art. They use their artistic ability to carve stone into foliage, figures, animals or abstract designs. Carver masons are the artists of stonemasonry, responsible for creating designs and/or patterns from stone, as well as on stones. This work can include stone sculptures of figures or animals, or other projects of a similar nature. Throughout history, carver masons have been renowned for their exceptional skills in crafting beautiful pieces from stone.