The usual faces put on in the trade (the fineness of face varying as to the price paid) are rockwork (sometimes called rustic face), punched, picked, single-axed, patent-axed, and polished faces. Rockwork is a cheap face, being left in its natural state as cloven, and merely pitched to a face line by a chisel, though exception is generally taken to any part of the rustic work being inside the pitched line of face. Some engineers also stipulate that there shall be only a certain amount of rock left on the face, as on the Tower Bridge over the River Thames and in the extension to the dockyards at Devonport, where the rock is limited to lin. beyond the face line. Rockwork faces have also come into vogue a great deal lately for house building, but for this class of work each stone has a margin draft run around the face, generally about 1 1/2 in. wide. A good example of this kind of facework can be seen at Fry's Chocolate Works at Birch, the stonework for which building was worked in West Cornwall. Blocking or ashlar for big engineering .iobs, such as piers, harbours, and the big masonry dams now in progress in various parts of England, are also made to a rockwork face.

Punched faces are used where the faces are required to be down to a given level for various purposes, such as pavements, edge kerbs, and channelling for streets, ami for stones destined to occupy places where a fine face is not required, as the quoins, heads, and sills at the backs of houses. The inside faces to small piers and harbours are generally punched. Picked faces are employed on dockwork and for coping for piers. Good examples can be seen at all docks of recent construction, notably at Portsmouth and Southampton and at the Devonport extension. The outside faces of lighthouses are also picked faces, with margin drafts. These faces can be put on at a moderate cost. The faces are first drafted around, then punched close and tooth-axed. That the tooth-axe is undoubtedly a great labour-saving tool is a fact that is confirmed by its universal use in Cornwall, whence practically all dock-work granite comes. In tooth-axing these laces, care should be taken to cross the work a good deal, or else, seeing that the teeth are in one line, the marks would appear to run in lines.

Single-axed faces are slightly better than picked faces, a further operation being required, namely, that in which the single axe (or, as it is called in Cornwall, the chopping axe) is put on after having punched the face and regulated it with the tooth-axe. Single-axed faces are less expensive than the patent-axed face. They are used for steps and risers, and are sometimes put on the soffits of arch stones for bridges that have patent-axed fronts. The Broomielaw Bridge at Glasgow is an example of patent-axed fronts and single-axed soffits to the arch stones. The bedstones for heavy machinery also have single-axed faces, which make a good level bearing. Patent-axed faces are the finest that can be put on granite with tools. The first example of patent-axed faces seen in England is believed to have been at the Great Exhibition of London in 1851. Patent-axed faces vary in fineness according to the number of cuts or blades of steel in the hammers. Thus there are four-cut, six-cut,eight-cut,ten-cut, audsometimes twelve-cut hammers.

These faces are first drafted around, then punched carefully off to about 1/4in. high to the drafts, carefully avoiding all holes; then tooth-axed till about | in. high to the drafts, and finally worked right down by the single axe; then, if for a six-cut face, the four-cut is run over it, then the six-cut. The mason should always be sure to single-axe right down, as the patent axe is not intended to take anything off, but simply to mark over the face in a uniform manner. If for a finer face than six-cut, the other hammers are put on in rotation until the required number of cuts is put in. The reason for putting them on in due succession according to the number of cuts is because these hammers are costly both to buy and to sharpen, and that to put an eight-cut hammer on, say, after a four-cut. would probably cause the blades to bow or to splinter up. The Tower Bridge and Putney Bridge afford good examples of patent-axed work, some of the stones having eight-cut work on them, especially on the finer mouldings to the Tower Bridge. The cost depends on the number of cuts required, as a six-cut requires one more operation than a four-cut, and an eight-cut one more than a six-cut, and so on.

The cuts on the faces are put on square to the beds of the stone, and on circular work radial to the centre. The patent axes, generally called bush hammers, are sharpened on the grindstone, the blades being screwed out for that purpose. Polished faces are the most expensive. These have to be worked up to a six-cut face, the cuts being crossed diagonally to make a harder face. Then the stone is put on the machines, which rub it with iron rubbers, fed first with sand and water, then with emery, and finally finished with flannel and putty powder (oxide of tin). The greatest care should be taken, in working off the faces with the tools, that no dead hard blows are given, as these stun the stone underneath where the blow is given, and, though this cannot be detected at the time, the bruises show after the polishing has been put on.