Jack: I just noticed I forgot to answer one of your questions. You can polish marble and sandstones by hand or electric sander using plain old sand paper or diamond sand paper. But granite is so hard that you must polish it using electrical tools with diamond abrasive disks. It would take forever to polish granite by hand. I know nothing about polishing slate.
John John L. Carmichael Jr. Sundial Sculptures 925 E. Foothills Dr. Tucson Arizona 85718 USA Tel: 520-696-1709 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: <http://www.sundialsculptures.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Aubert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 7:39 AM Subject: Carmicheal technique for making stone dials > Having returned from the NASS conference in Tuscon and having been dazzled > 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 > > - > -
