How to Carve Stone

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit
Carving stone is a type of sculpting. Stone is different from other mediums in that it's difficult to shape perfectly because of its density and unpredictability. Carving stone requires patience and planning. Use these steps as a stone-carving guide.

Steps

1. Choose the carving stone.
   • Stones have varying degrees of hardness. Soapstone and alabaster are common soft carving stones, granite and marble are the hardest, and limestone is somewhere in the middle. Each of these stones has different colors, textures and polishing ability.
2. Purchase a stone-carving kit. Local art stores or home and garden companies sell these types of kits.
   • A full kit can cost more than $100.
3. Place sandbags on the ground or on the surface (depending on the stone's size) of your workspace to support the stone.
   • The sandbags cushion the stone and prevent it from breaking.
4. Decide how you want to carve the stone.
   • Have a full stone-carving kit with chisels of various shapes and sizes for intricate designs.
5. Mark the stone with a pencil or crayon. Mark according to the shape you want the stone to take.
6. Cut small parallel grooves into the stone. Use a circular saw along your framing marks.
7. Take a point chisel and angle it 45 degrees in 1 of the grooves. Hit the chisel with the largest mallet.
   • This removes the stone between your parallel grooves.
8. Continue chiseling off a line around your framing mark. Repeat the chiseling process again once you've made it around the stone 1 time.
   • You will begin to see your stone take shape after you've chiseled around your framing mark several times (depending on the size of the stone).
9. Make finer cuts. Use a claw chisel for the cuts and details on the stone.
   • Accentuate the low points by chiseling deeper and leave the higher parts the stone relatively high.
10. Refine the points further using a toothed chisel. You are working to smooth out the stone by employing increasingly smaller chisels.
11. Remove the toothed chisel lines. Use a flat chisel.
12. Use a rasp to create elaborate, delicate details. The rasp also smoothes out the marks of the flat chisel.
13. Sand the stone using 100-grit sandpaper.
    • Repeat the sanding process with 150-grit, then 200-grit, then 300-grit sandpaper. Continue down the line until the stone is the degree of smoothness you want.
14. Polish the surface. Rub the entire surface with silicon carbide wet/dry sandpaper.

Tips

• You can make your own sandbags by cutting up old jeans and sewing them after they are filled with sand.
• You will need to use smaller mallets as your chisels become smaller and more precise.

Warnings

• Do not attempt to lift heavy stones without the aid of another person or a machine.
• Do not carve stone without wearing goggles, a dust mask, leather gloves and earplugs.
• Be aware of the direction of the stone's grain. If you chisel against it, it will break off haphazardly.

Things You'll Need

• Stone
• Stone-carving kit (with mallets and chisels)
• Sandbags
• Pencil/crayon
• Circular saw
• Sandpaper of various grits
• Goggles
• Dust mask
• Leather gloves
• Earplugs
• Silicon carbide wet/dry sandpaper

Related wikiHows

• How to Carve on a Long Board
• How to Carve a Jack O' Lantern
• How to Engrave Stone
• How to Clean Amber

Sources and Citations

• http://www.stoneshaper.com/how.html

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Carve Stone. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

For More Information's about the Marble Sculptures please visit Here!