Stone Carving: the jump to power tools

["George Graham" <georgergraham@zzzzzzzzzzz>]

Hello Ad,
Finding the right location to get into serious stone carving was the most
difficult issue to solve for me. The gazebo sounds perfect except for the
chance of disturbing your neighbors. You are going to make dust and noise,
so the question is how much is too much. I used to carve in my garage, in a
very crowded  old village . There are 5 houses within 60 feet, so I never
carved past 8:00pm, only used the grinder when nobody else was out, and made
a point of inviting everyone over to see what I was doing, and ask if I was
bothering them and if so, let me know.
I used a wide varity of tools, and most are not very loud, so timing was
important when I needed to grind and saw.
On the issue of power tools and how your wrists will hold up, I would try
light and small air hammer tools for detailed finished carving. The abuse of
your hands will be kept to a minimum, and you won't need a monster
compressor. If you use a 1" carving chisel from GCT in Barre Vt. for rough
out work, the vibration and pressure on your hands is tremendous. Using a
1\2" carving hammer gives a smooth finish that could be legitimately called
a final finish.
My opinion is that the more detailed your carving , the less you need a
polished finish. At some point polishing becomes counterproductive and
actually hides the form. It's a matter of personal choice of course, but
I've come to think that polishing is often over done. This conclusion comes
 from my own experience.
Now that you have some wonderful blocks of marble , I'd get to work and
start something ASAP!
Standing at the crossroads for too long can be absolutely paralyzing. For
me, everything becomes much clearer when I'm carving.

Good luck,
George Graham