Back in New York, I had to think of two problems: acquiring granite blocks, which I had already determined I would work on in my apartment, and speeding up the work on the voussoirs. The book mentioned a technique of using "feather and plug" wedges in drilled holes to split large masses off of a stone. Peter also recommended them, explaining that I would need a percussion drill with a 1/2 inch masonry bit to make the holes, and I purchased for $40 a set of paired flared half pieces (feathers) into which the wedges (plugs) fit. I also asked him where to get granite. He mentioned the incongruity that we live on the stuff but to get it you have to travel to a quarry or go to a monument maker. What he did not tell me, and after all I had specified granite, was that he deals in marble and has tons of it in his yard. Would that he had volunteered this information, because I now think marble is a better choice. In a bar I met a friend of a friend whose family lives on an abandoned granite quarry up the Hudson river, and he assured me he could get me all the granite I needed. But it was winter, and upstate had a lot of snow, and the weeks went past without him coming through.