Construction inspectorSauce: nitter.meowing.monster/gatinar#animalswithjobs@animalswithjobs

Kitteh is super cute.

Person's skill placing mortar is very impressive. Also, my back hurts watching this.

Cat's gotta make sure the bricks are stable.

As a stone mason, who has dabbled in laying brick and block, the base course fucking sucks. Also wish I had an adorable little helper.... everyone I work with are way less adorable.....

I was just talking to a relative about stone masonry. How does one even become a stone mason anymore? Do they offer apprenticeships? How much work is there?

Totally depends on where you are. Most places in North America don't have proper courses, there may be a union accredited course or a college class. The UK has proper apprenticeship programs, I think Europe too. Though living here and seeing what is taught makes me hesitant to say someone straight out of their apprenticeship is actually qualified purely on the basis of having gone to school. Not to say that what's taught isn't useful, or important, but it's not a true preparation for the reality of the job.

For the most part to get into it, you find a firm that's hiring labourers and start from there. If you live somewhere that has apprenticeships then look for that.

As for how much work there is. There's always rich folk that want a bunch of fancy stone on/in their house. Or if you live somewhere with properly old shit, UK/EU/parts of the East coast of NA, there's a decent amount of restoration/repair work. I've never had no work longer than a month if I was actually looking to be working.

That's all great information. I have a skilled trade already but, I'd love to pickup another skill. Pulling cables for a living makes ends meet for me, thankfully. Thanks for the reply!

Yeah, I live in Scotland, basically everything is built out of stone, and my day job doesn't really pay as much as it should. Wages are seriously depressed here for masons. Side jobs I get a decent amount for, but I'm not good at marketing myself so that's not really viable at the moment.

I live in the North East USA. My union has plenty of work so I've got no time to take up another trade but I'd love to learn the work. The current prevailing wage in my county is pretty decent.

Some types of masonry can totally be done as a hobby. Carving, Drystone diking(if you have room for a wall somewhere), building yourself a nice firepit or pizza oven....

I've got a friend that just purchased a home. They might let me build a little somthin' in their space. Good idea.

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