Look what I did today! An external round surface and an internal curve. There is even a flat surface carved out, if you can get your head around that.
I made two schoolboy errors. In my enthusiasm, I gouged a little too deeply and knocked off a tiny bit of internal corner. I still can't believe I did that in a day.
More to come tomorrow!
I have to come up with an idea for a design for another face of this limestone block for tomorrow. Any ideas?
I'm thinking something in relief, maybe a herdwick ewe face? They're cute and recognisable.
@Ivor Very nice! Some kind of nice soft Jurassic limestone?
@FaithfullJohn Ancaster limestone, quite easy to work but not too soft.
@Ivor *Standing ovation*
@Ivor that is impressive
@Ivor Excellent - very far from easy!
Incredible!
@Ivor So are we going to see some fancy copes on your walls now? 🙂
@Ivor Always good to try something new, you'll be looking out for carvable lumps of stone now!
@Ivor A cute sheep would work! Flowers or grasses might be nice, too, but maybe too fussy for one day.
@sbourne trying to keep it simple, this is the first time I've done anything but split or knock chunks off stone. It's all new.
@Ivor That would be fantastic.
@withaveeay wide eyes, cute face. What could go wrong? #SheepOfMastodon
@Ivor And any rough chiselling can be attributed to fluffiness
@withaveeay @Ivor I wouldn't know where to start.
@Florapis @withaveeay chip away and hope for the best, it's all hew to me!
@Ivor @withaveeay ho ho !
Absolutely yes to the herdie.
Or at least this one thinks so. And thanks you for calling her cute.
@tempusfelix I'll do my best.
Given how your carving looks so far, it’s ace.
@Ivor "I have to come up with an idea for a design for another face of this limestone block for tomorrow. Any ideas?" -- I misread that and thought you needed inspo for a corporal face, not a flat one.
But I still like the idea and positioning of these faces from a post a couple of days ago from @Jess.Stetson under #doorsday
@Ivor ...thing with "grotesque" is you'll have a little more leeway with slips... one in a hollow in each corner of the face?
@Ivor Another vote for a Herdy.
@Ivor Very nice!
@Ivor I'm interested in how you rounded off the long edge. Is there anything like making stopping cuts parallel to the edge and then chipping off perpendicular to it? Or is it simpler, and you can just chip pieces off without much fear of a crack travelling too far down the face?
@amenonsen a wooden template cut to the correct radius used to mark each end of the stone. Then straight lines pencilled on to mark the limit of the curve.
Straight chisel used to cut the arc in the ends then a scutch to rapidly remove material. Smoothing scutch marks out with a straight chisel then a riffler (file) then sandpaper to required finish.
Kept the chisel about half inch away from the straight lines. I did go too deep with scutch but I'm a beginner.
@Ivor Thanks. I didn't know the term "scutch", but I've seen such toothed chisels being used to carve stone.
One of the things I liked the best on a recent visit to the site museum at Humayun's tomb is a display of stone carving tools next to a big slab of sandstone showing the progression of stages of carving out the elaborate stone lattice work featured in various places in and around the tomb. First just shallow outlines of a pattern, then very shallow carving, and so on until the full-depth piercing.
http://mughalarch.com/jali.html
(Aside: "scutching" also seems to be the process of preparing natural fibres like flax for spinning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutching)