Quote:
Originally posted by Stonehenge
What do you use to pillow the blocks? Angle grinder? Some fancy diamond-bit router?
That stone looks like it'd be fun to work with - around here the water doesn't affect the weight of the stone, but it's likely because most of the limestone here is about 140-160 pounds per cubic foot, where that stone sounds like it's quite a bit less dense (I calculated about 80 pounds per cubic foot).
A lighter stone would make that work much more enjoyable. 
Did you do anything special to maintain alignment of the piers? Laser, maybe?
Excellent work. 
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A diamond face wheel on a 5" grinder for a rough chamfer followed by carborundum hand stones to smooth and round the edges. Its time consuming and labour intensive.
80 to 100 lbs/ft3 depending on wether there is any capstone (basically fossil) in the stone.
To align the piers we run a stringline, simply for the line, and use the laser for the height. One of the hardest things in this case is keeping the caps in alignment. We also use cheap adjustable clamps (sash type) for keeping the blocks in place while we are building.