Doorway restoration
Carved Doorway
BEFORE AND AFTER
While working on another house I was called to this one, where the doorway had eroded badly and the embellishment needed replacing. However, this was just one half of the stonework and the neighbour didn’t want theirs to be worked, so we had to just replace the half.
Ashlar
I’d assumed the stonework would be at least partly integral with the house. Not at all: it was all ashlar – thin (50-100mm thick) slabs of stone pinned into the brickwork. Much of the mild steel pins had rusted with other damage caused by thick unbreathable paint and poor maintenance and terrible repairing with concrete.
We dismantled the existing stonework relatively quickly and installed the freshly carved new stuff.
Poorly eroded stonework
Freshly carved stone
These are the new stones for the doorway.
2 sections of string course with dog-tooth mouldings, a capital and the left hand arch stone
Forma
We made a forma or support to take the arch out and reinstate the new. It was very rudimentary but was fine for our needs. 
All the stones were pinned into the brickwork with stainless steel and epoxy resin and then all pointed with lime mortar.
