Just having fun

A friend of mine went on vacation and brought back a stone. She asked if I could make something for her to remind her of her family trip.
I’ll be posting here and on my page more and will include tools and used for the process.

I found a small black stone on the beach in New Hampshire over the summer, decided to take a break from working on the larger rocks to make this Memento mori style fish pendent.

Hiya I'm getting shooting thumb pain while gripping the mallet. I'm making sure to keep a loose grip on my malet. Are there any grip aids to give my thumb a break? Cheers.

Vegas Golden Knights have brought our city so much economic growth! Grateful to be here making art

I usually leave the outside untouched as I like the contrast, but I may sand and polish this one - Open to feedback.

Come across this memorial stone, and was curious about the engraving technique. Could a dremel with diamond bits achieve this? If so, what kind of bits would best achieve this look? The lettering is about 2-3mm deep.

Hope it's ok to post links here - I've written an instructable on how to make a DIY pointing machine and wanted to share it with this group.

DIY Pointing Machine - Instructable

It's based around a 'magic arm' articulated camera mount - mine cost me less than £20 GBP - with a needle head built from odds and ends that I had laying around.

The Instructable outlines my process but also goes over the general requirements if you have other materials to hand.

It's worked really well for me and has helped me get into 'proper' carving after a lifetime of stalled progress.

If it helps one other person get over the same stumbling block I had, then I'm happy.

I'm currently prepairing to get into soapstone carving. I have very little experince with woodworking and practicaly none with stonecarving. I haven't bought any stones yet, as it is rather hard to obtain them in Hungary where I live. But getting the stones is not the problem as I have found a reliable place to buy the stones in Vienna and have bought some tools for the carving. I'm looking for suggestions for soapstone carving finish oils and waxes. I have bought some pure linseed oil and after some further reading I have concluded that it is totally impractical and simply a very bad idea to apply it to the finished carving. Sadly, this was the only thing I found as common ground in the disscussions. In the matter of what to use, the forums I've read were divided in a spectrum streching from boiled linseed oil to beewax to mineral oil. Can you help me? Someone's oppinon who has experience with soapstone carving would be much appreciated! Also if you have any additional advice for the tools to use (I've got some small woodworking rasps) or you know a place where you can buy large chunks of soapstone in Hungary at a reasonable price, I'm more than happy to hear it!

Im trying to carve a face and im kind of stuck. Any advice is appreciated. Its only half a face.

Here is a video of it.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Ss3VL0sJuRU?is=TnkL7oucsdqT_QVq

I really enjoyed the shape and color of these ! So I went ahead and carved them into tiny scarabs and then decided to set them into earrings!

Starting out stone carving. My tools came in the mail today.

Really want to know for safety reasons.

For now I think I'm going to reshape the wing a little and let the fossil sit right at the leading edge, almost like a texture detail rather than fighting to hide it. If it ends up looking awkward I can always rasp it back down later, limestone is soft enough that I'm not too worried about ruining anything permanently at this stage.

Curious if anyone else has run into inclusions like this mid carving, and whether you tend to carve around them or just accept whatever the stone hands you. Feels like one of those hobby moments where the material is making half the decisions for you.

Was a fun lil project

My most complicated sculpture to date, hope you enjoy!

Which is your favorite?

This is a stonecarving

Can anyone identify what this represents

Hi! This is one of my first attempts at stone carving (marble, obsidian, cubic zirconia, gold leaf). The skull itself turned out a bit rough: it lacks clear shadows and depth. Also, the obsidian didn't polish to a mirror shine. But I'm happy with the result—at least I got some work done.

This is an architectural interpretation of Suiseki in soapstone. The base is mahogany. Both are treated with mineral oil. I have loved suiseki for a long time and always had the instinct to imagine myself on the scale of the stones. My goal here was to make it easier for the viewer to imagine themselves on this mountaintop and I hoped the columns would help that by putting the scale in perspective. I’ve always enjoyed Greek architecture, so I decided to go with Doric inspired columns. They are also the simplest and the sturdiest so they were the columns for me lol. I really wanted to get the proportions exactly right since that was so important for the original architecture, but I ran out of time and simply eyeballed the dimensions.

I don’t think I’m done with this train of artistic thought. I have a lot of things in my mind about what I did wrong and what I’d do to make the next one truer to my vision. This will likely be the first of many.

Altogether, three whole weekends went into this project.

If anyone wants to know the process, I roughed in the perimeter shape with a drywall saw, roughed out the columns with a drill and rotary tool, then did all the rounding and shaping with a variety of old wood chisels and 400 grit sandpaper (shoeshiner style) to round out the columns.

i want to start carving rocks! just the regular rocks you’d find outside. what tools to use? techniques? anything is helpful. 🤗