marble hand tools? carbide vs.steel?

[Bernard Arnest]

Dear Group,

Ah, it's been 3 years now, hasn't it, since I first aspired to
carve marble and started posting on this group to that effect?

Anyway, I now have 2 years' practice sculpting clay, a few
hundred pounds of marble to play with, and thanks in part to
recommendations from a couple members of this list, $1000 grant from
my college's art council to purchase tools and stone with :-D


So, carbide or steel?


In talking with Nicholas Fairplay, a consummate carver, his take
was that Trow & Holden steel tools, and even the name-brand Milani
steel chisels from Italy, were crap. Soft; either low quality steel
or inadequately hardened steel. He far preferred his 30-yr-old
english chisels that he has owned for as long. According to him,
steel is just as good or better than tungsten carbide-tipped chisels,
were it not for the lower quality of steel chisels necessitating the
switch to carbide.

This doesn't strike me as logical. Having done some
bladesmithing, I know that quality tool steel is really quite cheap in
the small quantities used for, well, tools. At $1-$2/lb, a fraction
of the retail value of the chisel. But even the workmanship isn't
difficult. It's formulaic. Once shaped, just get it red hot, quench
rapidly, then temper in an oven at ~300-400F. How on earth could you
get it wrong? Unless you're a Chinese company who also substitutes
antifreeze for glycerin and melamine for real protein to pinch
pennies :-/ But not to be expected from 1st-world companies.


But right now I'm relying on my own intuition + one
professional carver.


Among the world of hand tools, do you prefer carbide or steel?
If steel, do Milani chisels work fine? Steel looks to be about 1/3 -
1/2 the price of carbide.
I know steel. I haven't carved stone with stone chisels, but I
know how to sharpen it, how to reharden it if necessary w/ a blow
torch or the forge at school, a sense for how brittle and how ductile
it is. I haven't worked with carbide.
If carbide, how do I sharpen those suckers? Is silicon carbide
harder than tungsten carbide? Is aluminum zirconium? And, tips for
working with carbide chisels so that I don't chip them, advice on
sharpening as the process may differ from steel?

Finally, I have a fair budget for hand tools; $400. Air
compressor + hand piece = impossibility. But for hand carving, do you
have some suggestions about selection? Do you get by with one medium
point, two toothed chisels, and a thousand flats and bull noses in a
myriad of sizes and radii? Or do you find that a couple flats with a
riffler or two smooths anything, and you have more toothed chisels
than anything else? Etc. I'll be doing 1:3 - 1:1 scale figure
studies (at 1:1 scale, relief portraits-- not lifesize statues with no
experience and hand tools!); respectable levels of detail required.

Oh wait, ONE last question. Do you prefer silicone carbide or
garnet sandpaper for finish work? What do you wax and polish with?



thanks!
-Bernard Arnest

[Gary Waller]

Good to see you back - three years!??!? Shows you how much I have been
procrastinating - big plans when I moved to the farm here two years ago -
now its seems like a big, green machine that swallows up my time and energy.
The Oceanside does the same- I think I'll have to move to the desert.

I have a slighly different perspective working for, and with stonemasons,
rather than sculptors. Firstly they have all the cool tools, because the
manufacturers don't want to bother with art sculptor market. Here is a good
company I recommend http://www.granitecitytool.com/index.cfm and they offer
a soft stone starter kit, hand chisels. I have many old books from the turn
of century forging, and your friend and mentor could be right - they had
some exotic techniques such as cyanide quenching, and things like that no
one would bother with today. I don't think anyone today would polish stone
with less than diamonds - again careful with quality, but for speed and
convenience I would be surprised if anything else is seen today. Don't
forget though, the public cannot discern between polished marble and
plastic - try to include some roughing in your work. Look at how many people
like Michelangelo's unfished works, and Rodin's rough and polished work. Its
too easy to 'fake' a polished finish with gobs of acrylic polish, which is
barely weather or people proof.

I think the question today, with so many diamonds and power tools - is it
better/faster to 'chip' away (pneumatic or not), or grind away? If you are
going to 'grind' though it will have to be wet, unless you want to deal with
dust. Is it warm enough to work 'wet'? From a production view, I would think
grinding would be faster/easier - using the chisel marks just for final
effect and 'frosting'. Grinding also offers less chance of cracking too? But
the notion of 'tinking' away at a lump of stone is aesthetically more
appealing than the 'daily grind'. Which are your neighbours going to more
easily tolerate. I have finally moved to spot where I can sculpt with small
explosives with only minor complaint- but I am not getting anything done!

Post by Bernard Arnest
Dear Group,
Ah, it's been 3 years now, hasn't it, since I first aspired to
carve marble and started posting on this group to that effect?
Anyway, I now have 2 years' practice sculpting clay, a few
hundred pounds of marble to play with, and thanks in part to
recommendations from a couple members of this list, $1000 grant from
my college's art council to purchase tools and stone with :-D
So, carbide or steel?
In talking with Nicholas Fairplay, a consummate carver, his take
was that Trow & Holden steel tools, and even the name-brand Milani
steel chisels from Italy, were crap. Soft; either low quality steel
or inadequately hardened steel. He far preferred his 30-yr-old
english chisels that he has owned for as long. According to him,
steel is just as good or better than tungsten carbide-tipped chisels,
were it not for the lower quality of steel chisels necessitating the
switch to carbide.
This doesn't strike me as logical. Having done some
bladesmithing, I know that quality tool steel is really quite cheap in
the small quantities used for, well, tools. At $1-$2/lb, a fraction
of the retail value of the chisel. But even the workmanship isn't
difficult. It's formulaic. Once shaped, just get it red hot, quench
rapidly, then temper in an oven at ~300-400F. How on earth could you
get it wrong? Unless you're a Chinese company who also substitutes
antifreeze for glycerin and melamine for real protein to pinch
pennies :-/ But not to be expected from 1st-world companies.
But right now I'm relying on my own intuition + one
professional carver.
Among the world of hand tools, do you prefer carbide or steel?
If steel, do Milani chisels work fine? Steel looks to be about 1/3 -
1/2 the price of carbide.
I know steel. I haven't carved stone with stone chisels, but I
know how to sharpen it, how to reharden it if necessary w/ a blow
torch or the forge at school, a sense for how brittle and how ductile
it is. I haven't worked with carbide.
If carbide, how do I sharpen those suckers? Is silicon carbide
harder than tungsten carbide? Is aluminum zirconium? And, tips for
working with carbide chisels so that I don't chip them, advice on
sharpening as the process may differ from steel?
Finally, I have a fair budget for hand tools; $400. Air
compressor + hand piece = impossibility. But for hand carving, do you
have some suggestions about selection? Do you get by with one medium
point, two toothed chisels, and a thousand flats and bull noses in a
myriad of sizes and radii? Or do you find that a couple flats with a
riffler or two smooths anything, and you have more toothed chisels
than anything else? Etc. I'll be doing 1:3 - 1:1 scale figure
studies (at 1:1 scale, relief portraits-- not lifesize statues with no
experience and hand tools!); respectable levels of detail required.
Oh wait, ONE last question. Do you prefer silicone carbide or
garnet sandpaper for finish work? What do you wax and polish with?
thanks!
-Bernard Arnest

[Gary Waller]

Bernie: Try your enquiry and quest over here http://aboutstone.org/vl/