Roofing Slate Production
Saturday, July 17th, 2010The blacksmith is instructed to forge out a chisel that the block cutter can use to measure his cut. In this manner, the slate splitter (the guy who splits out the actual rooting slates) receives blocks that have already been split to a convenient size, which he then splits by eve through the center, then in half again, then again to end up with the finished pieces of 3 16" roofing slate.
Naturally this technique is not precise and some slates turn out to be thick or thin on a new roof. However, the finished slates shipped out from the slate yards in the old days were amazingly uniform when the shingles were split from a good quality slate the better the quality, the easier it is to split thin shingle. When stacked, one can routinely expect 50 slates per foot of row of slates that are standard 3:16" thickness. This figure of 50 slates per foot of row is close enough that a person who has a stack of standard
antique American slates need only measure the total length of the rows, in feet, and multiply by 50 to get a close estimate of the number of slates.
