Ok, so I was able to negotiate myself through finding a repeating pattern for my random rectangular bluestone and put that behind me.  Now I’m laying the stone and since the stones vary in thickness from approximately 1 and 1/4 ” to 2 and 1/8″ I need to mostly put additional stone dust down or take it away from my base.  Man is that slow going.  I haven’t been able to lay it down faster than about 7-10 square feet per hour.  My self-imposed deadlines have come and gone (the weather partially to blame although I’ve grown fond of laying stone in the rain).  The most difficult pieces are those that aren’t uniformly the same thickness.

Anyone have any handy hints or jigs to speed up this process?  I had initially screeded the base with a proper pitch (per advice obtained here thank you) to about 2″ from final elevation and then started laying stone from there, adding dust, tamping, etc.  Seems most of the time spent is getting each stone’s top to lie in the same plane with its neighbors while maintaining the proper pitch in each of two directions.  Well, then again I guess that’s all of the time.

I’ve thought more than once, “Man pavers would have been so much easier”, although the bluestone does look awesome.

Thanks for any help.

Joe