How to become Stonemason in 2024

Stonemason Build stone structures, such as piers, walls, and abutments. Lay walks, curbstones, or special types of masonry for vats, tanks, and floors.

Stonemason is Also Know as

In different settings, Stonemason is titled as

  • Mason
  • Stone Derrickman
  • Stone Mason
  • Stone Setter

Education and Training of Stonemason

Stonemason is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Stonemason

Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.

Education Required for Stonemason

Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.

Degrees Related to Stonemason

Training Required for Stonemason

Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Stonemason in different industries are

What Do Stonemason do?

  • Lay out wall patterns or foundations, using straight edge, rule, or staked lines.
  • Shape, trim, face and cut marble or stone preparatory to setting, using power saws, cutting equipment, and hand tools.
  • Set vertical and horizontal alignment of structures, using plumb bob, gauge line, and level.
  • Mix mortar or grout and pour or spread mortar or grout on marble slabs, stone, or foundation.
  • Remove wedges, fill joints between stones, finish joints between stones, using a trowel, and smooth the mortar to an attractive finish, using a tuck pointer.
  • Set stone or marble in place, according to layout or pattern.
  • Clean excess mortar or grout from surface of marble, stone, or monument, using sponge, brush, water, or acid.
  • Lay brick to build shells of chimneys and smokestacks or to line or reline industrial furnaces, kilns, boilers and similar installations.
  • Replace broken or missing masonry units in walls or floors.
  • Smooth, polish, and bevel surfaces, using hand tools and power tools.
  • Drill holes in marble or ornamental stone and anchor brackets in holes.
  • Repair cracked or chipped areas of stone or marble, using blowtorch and mastic, and remove rough or defective spots from concrete, using power grinder or chisel and hammer.
  • Remove sections of monument from truck bed, and guide stone onto foundation, using skids, hoist, or truck crane.
  • Construct and install prefabricated masonry units.
  • Dig trench for foundation of monument, using pick and shovel.
  • Position mold along guidelines of wall, press mold in place, and remove mold and paper from wall.
  • Line interiors of molds with treated paper and fill molds with composition-stone mixture.

Qualities of Good Stonemason

  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.

Tools Used by Stonemason

  • 12 pound sledge hammers
  • 16 pound sledge hammers
  • 8 pound sledge hammers
  • Angle chisels
  • Angle grinders
  • Boom lifts
  • Brick hammers
  • Bush hammers
  • Buttering trowels
  • Cable winches
  • Cape chisels
  • Carry clamps
  • Chipping hammers
  • Circular saws
  • Claw hammers
  • Concave jointers
  • Concrete saws
  • Cross pein sledge hammers
  • Drill machines
  • Drum mortar mixers
  • Dust and particulate respirators
  • Dust collection systems
  • Dust masks
  • Electric mortar mixers
  • Electric winches
  • Fall arrest systems
  • Flat chisels
  • Folding rulers
  • Forklift booms
  • Full face shields
  • Gantry cranes
  • Gauging trowels
  • Grinding stones
  • Grout floats
  • Hacksaws
  • Hammer drills
  • Hand held sprayers
  • Hand torches
  • Hand tracers
  • Heating torches
  • Horizontal shaft mixers
  • Hydraulic hoists
  • Hydraulic jacks
  • Jackhammers
  • Jointers
  • Laser levels
  • Laser plumb bobs
  • Lewis pins
  • Lifelines
  • Lifting spreaders
  • Lifting suction cups
  • Margin trowels
  • Masonry forklifts
  • Masonry hard hats
  • Masonry levels
  • Masonry plumb bobs
  • Masonry safety glasses
  • Masonry saws
  • Masonry straight edges
  • Masonry utility knives
  • Measuring tapes
  • Mini grinders
  • Mixing drills
  • Mortar hoes
  • Oxygen lances
  • Pan mixers
  • Personal computers
  • Pinch bars
  • Pitching chisels
  • Pneumatic air compressors
  • Pneumatic chisels
  • Pneumatic stone grinders
  • Point chisels
  • Pointing trowels
  • Polishing machines
  • Portable cranes
  • Power hoists
  • Protective ear muffs
  • Protective ear plugs
  • Rigging equipment
  • Rock picks
  • Rondel chisels
  • Rope and pulley systems
  • Round point shovels
  • Rubber mallets
  • Safety goggles
  • Safety harnesses
  • Safety masks
  • Sandblasters
  • Setting bars
  • Shims
  • Slab trolleys
  • Stationary scaffolds
  • Steam cleaning equipment
  • Steel wire stone brushes
  • Stone cleaning sponges
  • Stone dollies
  • Stone grinders
  • Stone lifting clamps
  • Stone mason's hammers
  • Stone nippers
  • Stone polishers
  • Stone routers
  • Stone splitters
  • Stone splitting wedges
  • Story pole tape measures
  • Swing-stage scaffolds
  • Tooth chisels
  • Transit levels
  • Truck cranes
  • Tuck pointers
  • Vacuum lifts
  • Vertical shaft mixers
  • Vixen files
  • Wet stone saws
  • Wet-dry vacuums
  • Wooden templates

Technology Skills required for Stonemason

  • Citrix cloud computing software
  • CPR Visual Estimator
  • Gregg Software Gregg Rock-It
  • Intuit QuickBooks
  • Microsoft Active Server Pages ASP
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Word
  • ProEst Software ProEst Estimating
  • RISA Technologies RISA-3D
  • SAP software
  • Tradesman's Software Master Estimator
  • Virtual private networking VPN software