2 granite carving sequences

["George Graham" <georgergraham@zzzzzzzzzzz>]

Bill,
Last thing first, put on your dust mask! Even if you are working outdoors,
you are exposed to granite dust. Some people have never suffered from years
of granite dust. Others have suffered permanent damage from a single event.
Get a good mask and use it. I could keep on yelling at you, but I'm sure you
get my point.

Going from the very rough surface left from breaking off fins (from diamond
blade sawing) can be hard on carbide tips. I like to hand point off the
worst of it and then go to a bush chisel. The quality of chisels vary, but
if you get tools  from a granite tool supplier , your doing as good as you
can.

I'm not familiar with the long rods the Japanese were using for splitting.
I'm guessing that they have a wedge at the end, and are put deep inside the
stone to make the break go all the way through. If you are splitting off the
side of a block, you need to drill all the way through , or the split will
shear off to the surface. Wedging from both ends of the drill hole may help
get a clean break. When splitting , you have got to give yourself some extra
stone to allow for the crack to wander off and still not ruin your project.

There is an element of surprise to splitting that you can't escape.
I can't tell exactly what kind of diamond wheel the carvers were using.
Using a diamond blade to cut off very rough chunks is fine.Weather you are
cutting straight into the stone or cleaning off some saw cuts from the
surface,its still cutting, and you always have to keep checking to see how
the blade is wearing out. Sometime shortening the life of a blade is worth
it, if it cuts down on the other work. If your blade starts to throw sparks,
stop. Once the underlying steel is exposed, the sintered steel will start
peeling off, and it hurts. Its better to stop before you get to that point!

I've always got my carborundum grinding wheels from Granite City Tool Co. in
Barre Vermont.They are make for granite. They are really best when following
the bush chisels. If you have 1\2 inch of granite to remove,  use your air
hammer tools to the bulk of the work. Use a grinding wheel to clean up the
last 1\8". 20 grit is plenty course to work with.

Go back and look at the great pictures Simon gave us that show how to layout
a stone by using a square off the floor. If you have established a known
flat surface on your piece, and its nice if you got a stone with some good
sawed sides , then you have a starting surface to work from. Its hard to
describe in words, but the process is very simple and logical. You just have
to start with an accurate drawing on the stone or floor and start
transferring the lines down the sides or up from the floor. The process that
Simon shows is for making spheres, which is a full step past what you need
to do to make a round column. The trick is to have accurate lines laid out
to follow. Working off the floor gives you an established surface to work
off that never changes.  Make your self a template to keep  your shape
consistent. Simon's picture's and explanation are way better then my clumsy
words.

Using a diamond blade to make parallel cuts is fine to take down the corners
of your block. But , and there is always a but, the closer you get to your
finished surface, the closer the saw cuts have to be. Stone has a tendency
to brake deep between the saw cuts.

Cutting a square block to specific dimensions all starts with a good layout.
Go back to the floor or some version that you come up with. Go for  working
on making two opposite sides that are parallel with each other. Then when
cutting the joining sides , your corners are established. I would take extra
care cutting your corners with a diamond blade , grinding wheels or flat
chisels. You can't go anywhere near the corners with a bush chisel. Finish
your corners in at least an inch so you don't accidentally knock off an edge
when you are cleaning up between the corners.

Finally, the established corners are your guides that help you see when a
side is flat, and not bulged out in the middle. Just lay a straight edge
across , from side to side, and you will instantly see where you are still
high. If I'm leveling off a large area, I cut a couple 1" wide margins to
connect the finished corners, using a straight edge to get them very
accurate. This to divide up the area into smaller and more manageable
quadrants. It easier to clean up 4 small areas than one big surface.

There is an old trick that you can see on old stone work. The cutter would
make the corners very fine and finished. They would be perfect, but if you
laid a straight edge across  you will see that in the middle the surface was
just a little lower than the corners. The tooling is often just a bit
rougher then the corner work. Its a subtle difference, but one that saved
the cutter a lot of time. People only see a square by the side lines. If
your corners are perfect then the work looks right. A bulging side, however
slight is instantly noticeable, but if the surface is slightly depressed, it
only makes the corners look better. Go out and take a close look at the hand
cut monuments in the old section of your local cemetery.

I have done all the work exactly as I've describe, but whenever possible, I
use a diamond bridge saw as much a possible. Technology is a wonderful
thing!
Get a good dust mask.
George Graham