Seasoning of stone :

Generally, the action of having various changes in different seasons on the stone which are drying and wetting of stone which gradually forms the crack in stones which leads to the action of weathering action and forms inorganic small size materials is called seasoning of stone.

Seasoning refers to both drying and wetting cycles on one hand, and airing of stone, on the other hand. Dehydration during seasoning is more or less an irreversible process. Thus seasoning applied mainly to soft limestone; hard limestone seems to less affected by it. Stones have natural moisture, known as quarry sap. This quarry sap renders the stone blocks comparatively soft and makes them easy for working. Immediately after quarrying, a stone is soft and is easy to work with it so sized and primarily dressed, but polishing requires a fully seasoned and hardened stone.

Pointing :- It is the art of finishing the mortar joints in the exposed brick or stone masonry with suitable cement or lime mortar, in order to protect the joints from weather effects and also to improve the appearance of building structure. Pointing is a type of front of the house exposed finish on masonry work.

Object of pointing :- The main object of the pointing is to maintaining the joints of the structures. Pointing being cheap can be adopted in places of low rainfall. Pointing gives resisting power to the bricks and stones used in construction towards weather conditions.

Operation of pointing :-
1. All the mortar joints (on the masonry face required to be pointed) are raked out by a special pointing tool to a depth of 15 to 20 mm, so as to provide an adequate key for the fresh mortar used for pointing.
2. All the loose mortar and dust are removed by brushes.
3. The joints and wall surface are washed with clean water, and then kept wet for few hours. The joints so prepared, are filled with suitable mortar with a small trowel.
4. The mortar is well presses into the joints to form a close contact with the old interior mortar joints and all excess mortar sticking to the sides are scraped away.
5. The finished pointing work is kept wet for about 3 days when lime mortar is used for pointing and for 10 days when cement mortar is used for pointing.