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Your advice on carbided tipped chisels, please

Stone Conversations : Archive 1 : Message 00244

From: Walter Arnold <walter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 20:53:06 -0500
Subject: Your advice on carbided tipped chisels, please

At 06:08 PM 8/30/99 +0900, Craig Vachon wrote:

Quoted text begins.Can anyone advise me on how to keep these expensive tools from
breaking? (I only strike the chisel with the hammer once for every ten
seconds - and always move the chisel from the last place struck...)
End of quote.


Granite is a hard material. In the old days in the U.S.
(80 to 120 years ago, before carbide tools) standard
work rules in the granite shops called for one
blacksmith for every four granite cutters- which meant
one cutter would use up as many chisels in 8 hours as a
blacksmith could sharpen in 2 hours.

A couple friends worked on the carving some large
Indians designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (the carving was
done in the early 1980's; these pieces were for the
Johnson Wax building, they were in the original plan but
were never executed until 18 years ago.). The figures
were around 12 or 15 feet tall. They went through as
many as 20 carbide tools in a day; filled buckets with
tools that went back to the manufacturer for re-tipping.

Walter S. Arnold * walter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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