Retaining fine detail when polishing stone

["Clive Murray-White" <clivemw@zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz>]

Dear Tim,

I use sate sticks (thin bamboo skewers) with all the grades of wet and dry
then felt and polishing compound wrapped around them, tedious and not hyper
effective but I get there in the end.

But there's far more to this topic than really meets the eye........ firstly
if you are going to polish everything and keep detail it gets down to the
order in which you do things, my rule is to do the most difficult bit first,
say under an eye lid, so its corners first and then easier groove second,
the reason for this is that its always much easier to adjust the easy to get
areas than the fine ones.

Second, I reckon its a good idea to wet the sculpture and shine a good light
on it so that you can see what it would look like if were polished,
sometimes the form just wont put up with it.

Third: many marbles are quite translucent so when you polish something like
an upper eye lid the light will actually shine through it radically changing
its tonal value. The question of light and how it effects your sculpture
could easily be why you are dissatisfied with the end results, polish, you
just have think of chrome or glass, reflects every light that falls on the
sculpture so even if you had managed to keep the details light could make
them impossible to see. far too shiny!

Fourth: Some forms just look awful when polished, it always a question of
the appropriateness of any form to carry any particular surface.

Last: If the sculpture is never going to go outside then it wouldn't matter
if you used a very high quality liquid wax polish like Tenax. Even the
roughest surface can be polished to a mirror finish with that stuff. Looks
awful but it can be done.

Good luck.

Regards Clive

Sculptor Clive Murray-White
Cowwarr Art Space
Cowwarr Gippsland Vic. Aus.
Ph: 03 51489321 Fax 0351489498
E-mail: clivemw[AT]optusnet.com.au
Web: www.cowwarr.com