Hi All,The other day I got our 17yr old Daughter to brick up an outside fluehole in our next-door-neighbours ground floor bathroom extension.We had been to the local building suppliers together and bought thecorrect bricks (LB Ironstone) some sand / cement mortar mix and wepicked up a nice light / reasonably long chisel to suit her untrainedhands.Our objective was to remove all the disk cut bricks and replace themwith full ones.I first showed the general techniques, how to get a brick out withoutdamaging the brick around it etc, gave her some safety goggles andsome light work gloves and set her going.She actually stuck at it for quite some time and especially seemed toenjoy removing some of the more stubborn bits of mortar (you know thatsatisfaction you get when you get behind a good bit and it comes awaycleanly) ;-)Anyway, this lead onto the idea of her doing some stone carving but wedon't really want to invest too much money in any 'specialised' kit(might be ok if the stuff could be used for other d-i-y roles etc).Googling about reveals a few but most are up in the £100+ bracket.Now I know the job will be much easier with the right tools but thisis just an experiment for a fairly artistic and pretty competent (in ageneral sense) person who learns fast (we still have the littleornament she made with my MIG welder when she was about eight and itbears the most perfect 'J' on the surface, much better than I couldhave done even now!). The trouble is, like many kids today I'm notsure she has the patience to see a carving through to the end, nothelped by the fact I know how fussy she is should something go wrong(like a bit breaks off etc). But, I'm still keen to give it a shot ..you never know if this is 'the thing' that she's does for a livingetc.So, with that in mind, does anyone have any ideas how we could best /easiest give some basic stone carving a go, what materials could beused and from where please? (You know like with some of these fancyexpensive chemicals .....

===================================You could cast a block using sand and cement (a mix similar to concretebut omitting the aggregate) as a basic block of 'stone'. Standard coldchisels (smaller widths) including a 'scutch' chisel would be usefulstarter tools. A round mallet would be safer than hammers - less danger ofmis-hitting.Cic.

Stone carving for beginners?

May 04, 2008 41 Replies

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T i m 18 years ago

Another good idea, especially as it's likely to give results quickly, thanks Steve ;-)

All the best ..

T i m

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T i m 18 years ago

I showed her the link just now and she likes them.

Obviously they 'look' simple to make but if it were I the pointy bits might end up a little shorter ... :-(

All the best ..

T i m

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