by the beauty and techniques John demonstrated for working with sandstone, I am energized to attempt something similar using locally available materials.
My neighborhood stone supply place sells slate and white/black/green marble. I know slate is very easy to work with, having made a slate dial once by simply scribing the lines and numbers with some home-made hardened steel tools and a straightedge. Marble should also be quite easy to carve, but I wonder how durable an exposed marble horizontal surface would be given acid rain and so forth. I also wonder if it would be feasible to use John's technique (diamond cutting tools with water drip) to work on granite, which is quite a bit harder. I suspect it might be feasible to carve the lines, but perhaps not to polish by hand.
I wonder if John or any of the other list members have any ideas about the suitability of different types of stone.
Jack -
