Building Frames

On using Frames:  When I first started building dry stack stone walls, since I didn't have any instructor, only some books that I was able to find, I didn't know how to build a frame to set the precise batter for the wall.  I would get steel rods (rebar) and drive them into the ground with my hammer, 38 inches wide so that I could have a base of the wall at about 36 inches.  The extra couple of inches were to accommodate larger stones at the foundation.  I tied nylon rope between the rebar to define the outsides of the wall, and I did it in about 25 foot sections at a time.  This gave me a straight line for the wall, but didn't help to tell me how much I should draw the wall in, making it narrower, as I built up the wall.  In Take This Hammer, local stonemason and friend Charles Howard showed me how to build a frame, and now we always work with a frame, with smaller strings around the frame that we raise up a foot at a time or so, and this makes the wall much more precise.