hand facer

[abknight@zzzzzz]

George, Thank you very much for your response.  I still want very much to
try one.  I may have T and Holden braze a four point to a rock drill
shank, as they have offered to do.  I quess monument shops are the place
to look for the hand facer/door stop, or did another industry use them?

I am somewhat intoxicated by what I'd have to call the plastic immediacy
of the four point in the one inch Dallet.  I am not interested in a
polished surface, and the four point is a surface I'm pretty happy with,
so I am roughing out and finishing all at once; after working marble
that has detailed relief to a fine finish this is an intoxicating
switch.  Granite is so amazing in that it offers bright, undamaged
crystals beneath every hammer blow.  Sawing and knocking out is
obviously inevitable when working to any depth in a larger stone, but

I'd like to know when did carvers switch to hand saws and what they did
before they came into use.  I may be wrong in asssuming that the
pneumatic hammer predates the handheld circular saw, but I don't think
so.  In my imagination, previous carvers must have suffered under some
high powered bush hammers to rough out figural work.  Is all this
wonderful memorial statuary carved over the last 150 years sawn?  My
imagination is usually wrong, so please correct me.  How did those
carvers rough out?

Indebtedly yours,  Bill >