Free Marble!!!

["Linda" <LMHTWB@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Now that I have everyone's attention, ....

Seriously, if you live in Southern California or are willing to travel
there, you can load up your truck with some free marble.

A friend of mine who lives in Lucerne Valley (the gateway to Big Bear --
ha!) mentioned that there were limestone mines in the area, which they use
for cement mixes.  Since I enjoy carving limestone and since I assumed it
would be cheap, I did a little digging.  There's actually several mines in
the area, but I found the phone number for Mitsubishi Cement Corp. first, so
I called them.  I talked to a very helpful man named Doug Shumway
(1-760-248-5136) who said the limestone was indeed carveable and that I
could just come up and get as much as I wanted.  The only caveat was that
the Mitsubishi Co. would like me to donate them a small sculpture done in
their stone.  I could live with that, so we arranged a time to meet.  In the
offices, he showed me several small sculptures and I was shocked.  Stunned.
Bowled over.  The 'limestone' was actually what you and I would call marble.
(I know to a geologist limestone and marble are basically one in the same,
but I'm not a geologist!)  Anyway, Doug took me up to the mine manager who
then took me out to a bench where he promised I wouldn't be run over by
those huge dump trucks!  He left us (hubby came along as slave labor) to
pick up whatever stone I wanted.  I came home with about 15 medium-sized
pieces (50-100 lbs each) plus a few extra.

My experience with marble is limited, but I'll try to explain what the stone
is like.  The stone is a large grained marble with grains larger than those
in Vermont marble (or at least the piece I have).  It mainly comes in white,
white with grey streaks, grey with white, and (the stuff I'm drooling over)
black.  (I also found two pieces with a reddish tint due to clay, but I
couldn't find anything larger than a grapefruit.)  The lighter colors are
harder than either Vermont or Carrara marble.  The black stuff is about as
hard as Carrara, is slightly smaller grained, and is actually considered to
be the lowest grade of stone they have in the quarry.  (Hey, I'm more than
willing to take the wretched stuff off their hands!)  The pieces come in all
sizes from dust on upto 3-4 foot blocks, with most in the shoebox size
range.  The mine manager said if I wanted something larger than hubby and I
could lift that he would be happy to get a bobcat and some men to pick it up
for us.  I was warned that since they blast the rock out, it does have a
tendency to have microfractures in it.  The piece I've started on did lose
some large pieces around the edges, probably due to these fractures(?), but
the core seems sound.

And now, back to chunking away on the piece.  If I use up all these pieces,
then I can go back up there and get more of the black stone!

Regards,
Linda