Dec 20
2024

Teenager with her cube.

The prospective graduates polish the stone and work out the pips. A professional case for stonemasonry promotion is a new idea

An original idea for attracting young people to the stonemasonry profession comes from the Stone Centre in Hallein, Austria: At a career fair, young people were given small stone cubes from which they were to make dice for the game. The task was to polish the surfaces smooth and then to apply pips into the stone.

It was a great success: the people from the graduating classes of the schools in the area showed great patience and were also very impressed by drilling the flat lenses for the dice’s pips.

The idea came from the Stone Centre, and so material expertise was incorporated into the project from the very beginning. The Untersberg marble was chosen, which firstly comes from the area and secondly is quite soft. After polishing and drilling, the young people were allowed to take their cubes with them.

Young dice experts and local celebrity.

The raw pieces came from the technical school for stone processing, which is right next to the stone center.

The success of the campaign at the Youth & Career trade fair in Wels led to the idea being taken further: Guild master Helmut Moser developed a professional case for stonemasonry promotion. It should contain raw cubes, sandpaper and templates. The case is to be made available to vocational teachers at middle schools.

Oh yes: According to the state of the art, the cases also contain a map of Austria, on which the country’s natural stone types and the location of the quarries and processing plants are marked.

Steinzentrum Hallein (German)

Photos: Steinzentrum

(20.12.2024, USA: 12.20.2024)