>>> Philip Cryan Marshall <[log in to unmask]> 21/01/00 11:52:46 >>> wrote:
"It seems to me that, as you mention, ASTM is a difficult place to devlop
standards within, in our case, the conservation profession. But, still, the
idea of developing standards for testing and analysis would be helpful; so
many of those our there are applicable to new construction; sites where
destructive analysis is the norm, etc. But applying even the existing ASTM
standards to preservation projects may be challenging, destructive, and even not applicable!"

Agreed.  But as you stay, you have to start somewhere.  There is a lot of scope to take existing standards and edit them, revise them, manipulate them, simplify them ... and turn them into something suitable for our purposes.  Then we need the likes of Mr Edison et.al. to do some testing to validate the methods ... and voila, we have some standards.

"I believe some of the speakers at one of the last ASTM symposium developed by Committee E06.24 on Building Preservation and Rehabilitation Technology, spearheaded by Steve Kelley and others, may have addressed this issue."

Quite likely ... I'm still trying to get my copy of the STP for that symposium out of ASTM.  They were refusing to send me a copy at an address other than my registered address when I was overseas, and I haven't got around to trying again.  Bureaucracy!

"Meanwhile, I have lamentably missed ASTM "meetings" at Carrara. Do you know of any quarries to visit?"

In Avenza-Carrara there is a tourist bureau which facilitates tours.  I think you get into a quarry that way.  The other approach is to wander off into the hills in your hire-car or on a bike, and just lean over the fence and look in.  A good way is to know somebody at a stone manufacturer who can organise a visit.  Or alternatively, hang out in the bars in Pietrasanta, get talking to the sculptors who come from all over, and somebody might know somebody who can do something for you.

"Ever since the Exterior Stone Symposium in 87 at the McGraw Hill building, I have has a hard time taking to urban sidewalks."

No need to be like that.  Very few bits of stone fall out of buildings (except in Paris, where the new Opera, and the Grande Arche, both lost bits in the mid 1990s, soon after completion!).  Now glass, there's a worrisome material!

Cheers

david