gluing limestone

["George Graham" <georgergraham@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Greg,
You should get an excellent book on how to carve stone by Milt Lisbon. He
goes into great detail on gluing together stone. He has it down to a
science. I don't have the book here,so I can't give you the exact spelling
of his name, (spelling is not one of my strong points) but if you go to
Barns and Noble and look for books on stone carving you will see his book.
I try to avoid gluing stone together to build up a block. It seems to be
more trouble then its worth. I have done some work that required me to stack
two pieces in order to get enough hight. By pinning them together, but not
gluing, I was able to take the piece apart and work on it comfortably.
Setting the piece up in my customers home was much easier with the piece in
two parts. I used a dense gasket material which is about 3/32's of an inch
thick as a spacer between the stone to create a joint. I don't let the stone
touch, and the spacer material is pushed in so you can't see it. This leaves
an obvious joint that does not detract from the piece. By not gluing, the
piece will be much easier to move if the owner decides to move someday,
which is a good selling point to a potential customer.
If you are gluing a piece of stone to create an arm that extends out from
the body, then you will still have the problem of having an extreamly
fragile arm weather it is pinned and glued or carved from a soild block.
Also be aware that if you glue two slender pieces of stone together and then
break it apart, you will see that (usually) the stone will break apart from
the glue. So even with the strongest glue and the perfect joint, you cannot
improve the inherent strength of the stone. I'm not trying to discourage you
 from doing what you want, just adding my insights. Trying something new and
different is good to do, and the work is never a wast of time.
Go for it!
Good luck, George Graham