I too am about to embark on a similar project and have never done this before. I bought a copy of "the art and craft of stonescaping" In there the author covers in some detil different tools required for laying stone and also building walls along with details on how to do the job. You might be able to read what you need over coffee at Borders!

i know this site isn't what you want, but you may be able to use bits of it. pretty specific.

Here is a link that might be useful: flagstone walk

Thanks. My real question was on the exact sizing of hammers and chisels but I guess a lot of it may be a personal preference. I just bought a digital camera and I plan to document my project as it moves along.

nanook, for a patio I would try to stay in the 1 1/2" to 2" thick stone. What are the dimensions of the stone you are considering? That will suggest the chisel width.

If you google "rock hammer" go to the amazon listing as they everything you need. The rock hammer has a chisel end for chipping the stone. You will also find a rubber mallet handy of setting and leveling the stone firmily in the base.

If you anticpate a lot of cutting and shaping you might want to consider a grinder with a good rock cutting blade. I think my DeWalt grinder cost about the same as my rock hammer. However I did put a $90.00 blade on the grinder -- but then I was working with 3 1/2 ton of flagstone.

Thanks Bailey. I'm using a pallet of stone so some is pretty think. I'm not going to do a lot of shaping, just trying to keep things roughly square/rectangular vs triangular. I appreciate the advice. I completed much of the demolition of the old concrete patio last weekend (all the concrete is gone but old azalas need to be dugout and moved). I'll start putting pictures up soon.

I did mine in sand similar to flagstone walk (above). Guess what, sand is not a good medium for plants and without the plants between the stones they do not "set" well for the long haul.

After chewing me out for being stupid and old gizzled gardner told me to mix sand, potting soil and bone meal for the setting medium. He also gave me a reccomendation of several plants that would grow well to "set" the stones. I am using Irish and Scotch moss, it looks beautiful and stones no longer seem to shift or rock and don't have to be reset the stones every now and then.

I did about 100 feet of paths (3 feet wide) and a 10x10 patio in bluestone and didn't use any power tools. I did have a brick set but a brick hammer was more useful. For the most part, I simply fit pieces together in a pleasing arrangement, sometimes trimming with the brick hammer. I did have several pallets to choose from, though, and I think I was using much bigger pieces than you are. The bluestone pieces ranged from about 1-3 inches thick. Often bluestone has kind of ledges on it that make it easy to trim. I did lay the stone just on a sand bed, and there hasn't been much of any displacement of the stone. However, my pieces are big and heavy, and I live in California--there's no snow and very little frost, so by other people's standards, we can get away with a rather sloppy job!