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Working Stone

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Bryan Milham:
Has anyone worked Stone.

I know we can buy Soapstone, I've seen it at Yandles and I've also seen Bluejohn turned. But has anyone one the forum turned Stone.

The basic reason for this question is I've made a master for a baluster as used on a Victorian Manor Balcony. It will be used to make a GRP mould and from that cast the necessary number of balusters in a Stone effect Resin.

But the man I did the master for might prefer real stone ones. The Mason has quoted £700 each for them as real stone, a lot less of cast ones. Any price I gave would be somewhere between the 2 but I said I'd try find out some information and offer a price.

The balusters appear to be made out of a local limestone called 'Bath stone'.

I can ask the quarry how much for a number of correctly sized squares, but can the stuff be worked on a lathe, what tooling would I need, HSS or would the newer Carbide tipped tools be better.
 

GBF:
I would see no reason why you could not turn Bath stone it is quite soft but you would have to make sure they cut it with the grain running parallel to the Lathe bed and would probably turn best with water running over it'
When carved bath stone sands well and you can get a good Finnish wet sanding would probable be best.


Regards George

Les Symonds:
I turn slate cabochons from time to time and it took me a while to get things right. Basically, the drive speed needed to be very low to avoid friction and the best results I got were from old scrapers that I reground especially for the job. I worked on a grind of about 80degrees, using a narrow tip for cutting the shape and a wide tip for finishing.
Les

The Bowler Hatted Turner:
Bryan I used to work next to a stone turners workshop.His lathe was mounted very close to the groundand he turned with very long handles, He used tipped tools, I daresay in those days they were carborundum tips. Very slow speed as Les has said.

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