Roughing it by Chisel and Saw.

 The layout I drew on the stone last week was close, but only close. I had to scrub it all off, and start over a couple of times.  The piece I'm making is based on this very cool little doo-dad:

 

 

It's a Fender Bomb, a front fender ornament for a 1950's Schwinn/Whizzer motorized bicycle. Last year I stared this project with two different stones, a piece of gray steatite, and a piece of silver anhydrous alabaster. Both stones were too hard to work given the tools I have. This piece of pearly alabaster is going to be just about perfect for this project. The outside faces of the boulder are weathered, and chalky, but the stone beneath the surface is good and hard. 

I want to use the stone to its best advantage, and waste as little as I can. That means fitting the largest possible iteration of the figure into the confines of the stone that holds it. Even so, this figure will need a lot of excavation. There's a whole lot of rock to remove. (Old layout below)

 

This chunk is easy, as stones go. The two flat sides are fairly even, and roughly parallel, but the arching line across the top is very irregular. This is where it would be nice to work from a smooth, pre-cut cube instead of a boulder.  As it is, the two 'flat' sides of the stone aren't flat.The  diameter of the ring has to fit between the lowest depressions on either side of the rock. Finding, and measuring the low spot is tricky work with the steel square, and  the probe on the vernier caliper. Fortunately, this isn't machine shop, but time spent planning is saved in execution.

 

Fri. 8/5 

The task is to shave down the sides of the stone, and cut away scrap. The stone has a little translucence to it, and the scrap pieces all ring like glass when they drop. I can feel some tiny, hard inclusions in the rock as I saw.  Perhaps they'll show up as spots in the finished stone.

 This is good material; the rasps, and saw blades meet a lot of resistance. That makes precise cuts easy, but it's very slow work. 

Saw, saw, saw- 

 "Are we there yet?"

 "No."

 

 Sometimes doing this feels all kinds of artistical, and creative, and stuff. Other days are like today- just slogging through a rock with a chisel and a bow saw. I have heard that there are  devices that combine saw blades with electric motors. It's an odd notion to be sure. Some say these devices speed up the work. Could be. But I won't put an electric motor on my bicycle, either. 

 

 (New layout)

 

 8/7/22

 

Here is where I left off Friday afternoon, and where I'll begin this Monday. There is still a lot of material to cut away before I can begin shaping the ring. The top cut is right on the line, and both sides of the stone are shaved close enough to work as well. The next cut-aways will free up the two bottom corners of the circle, and then I can start with the material behind the ring in the back half of the piece.

 

Why patience is a virtue. Notice, in the next pic, the flake broken out on the middle line at the side, and another one near the right end corner. In both places I was just exploring- setting the chisel, and taking a tap to see if I had a good bite on the stone. Both blows knocked out much bigger chunks than I had intended. Never chisel near the edge of a cliff. You go over the edge, and work into the cliff face. In this case there is no harm done because the large flakes that dropped out are in areas that I'll be cutting away anyhow. Still, it's a reminder.

 Like Treebeard would say: "Mustn't be hasty."

And besides, it's already getting into the slow-motion days of mid August, and the season of heat. Working is a party of grit, dust, and sweat. But that's what makes it real. If I wanted to stay clean I could stay indoors, and build model kits.

 

 

 

Anza Borrego #4 Pearlstone

7/26/22

 It's half past eight Tuesday night. I didn't put up a post Monday because I hadn't started a new stone. Last week I did a half assed job of cleaning the garage, then I trimmed the Chinese elm, and the Umbrella plant out front, and just cleaned up some small stuff around the house, and grounds.  Saturday the bike gang got together to check a possible new cruise. It wasn't so great. We ended up doing twenty miles of housing tracts and surface streets in the coastal flats just inland from Huntington. We did some riding on the Santa Ana River trail, and some through Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley, but altogether too much on surface streets and sidewalks. I was up for a slow, easy park cruise, but not much more. The years are catching up to me, and the all day ride kicked my ass. I was flopped on the couch all day Sunday, too.

 

Wed. 7/27

I didn't plan on starting the new stone, Tuesday. It just sort of happened. We had a cool, cloudy morning, a welcome break at this time of year. I was sitting in the gazebo, enjoying a stale coffee, and a w&b with Buddy the Cat, and the Most Mysterious Skinamalink. The wheels started turning in my head. I crossed the yard, and started checking out the pearl stone. 

*wait*

 The pearl stone? I'm not kiddin' that name just jumped straight from my sub conscious to the keyboard. So, The Pearl Stone, it is. Anyway, as you can see in the first picture, there's a streak of tan color running up and down the left side of the rock. I was thinking about sawing the base along that brown streak, and using the flat face that the stone sits on   for the front end of the figure. But then I re-considered. The stone is much more square than it looks. It's roughly 11" x 13", either way. I decided to just use the flat cut that was already there for the base.

But once I got the stone up on the table I saw the crack. It ran the full circumference of the stone, right above the brown streak. So I had to go back to the original plan, and make a base cut. I don't like this part. 

There are several ways of setting up a stone to make the base cut. Sometimes I've set up a jig to hold the stone, 'just-so'. Other times I've strapped the rock down to the table. This time, I took a chance on doing it freehand. I got the stone wedged up level on the board, and scribed a base line all around the circumference of the stone. (tricky) Sometimes you have to do sections. But the gods were with me on this one, and all the sections lined up, and connected like magic. Then I traced over the line with a hacksaw blade, then rolled the cut around the corners, going a little deeper with each pass. Then the bow saw. Round and round, until later on in the afternoon the cut went all the way through, and exactly twenty pounds of rock fell away.

 

 It took a few runs on the sanding board to finish the job. This part of the project usually takes two, or three days. I knocked it out in one. Groovy.

 

 

I'll be doing something different on this project. I know exactly what the finished piece is going to look like. I will have a really for real plan for this one, with measurements, and everything. This is a rough draft. There's a bunch of changes to make, and stuff I have to mess with yet. Stay tuned.

Winding it up. A late post

 

Lost California Project:: Anza Borrego #1, #3, and #2

Monday, 7/18

I just got done setting up the day's work. It's finishing day; messy, tedious, frustrating, finishing day(s). But I took a W&B, and a sudden  cascade of thoughts and feelings rolled over me, so I walked away from the table, and sat down here at the desktop.  Mary is down in San Clemente with her nephews and niece. 

Saturday was the memorial service for Mary's brother's wife, Martha, who died some weeks ago. This came right on the heels of her husband, Mary's brother, Randy's death in December.

 Martha. Randy. Chris. Max. Larry.  All people I knew on a first name basis. None had the coof. You know the meme: I'm not saying it was... but...

Randy and Martha's four sons, and their families had  all flown out for the service. It isn't easy to get all the families in the Winans clan gathered. Sunday night they made a snap decision to do the scattering while almost everyone was together. They decided on San Clemente where the family once owned a condo above the beach. San Clemente is fifty six miles from here. As I write, the Winans clan is down there scattering the ashes: Randy, Martha, and Mary's mother and father, as well.  Mary is riding down with her niece, Katy, and she left the house a little before four this morning.  I am normally a very early riser. Three thirty is not uncommon, yet despite a sketchy night's sleep, I did not awaken and hear her leave.  Mary exempted me from attending and for that I am grateful. One hundred and twelve miles of So Cal traffic grateful.

Even so. I should have gone. Can't undo what's not done. Mary is sometimes too easy on me. Most wives would have insisted. I took the easy way out.

 I didn't attend the service, either. The family are all members of the uptown Methodist Church. I've attended services there, and I don't care for the female pastor. I attended services for Randy there just a few months back. For that service I was slightly late; the attendance was light, and I declined to wear a mask. I sat in the back, alone in a pew, but I had to leave early anyway.

Martha was active in her teaching profession; she knew a lot of people, and she had many friends, and former co-workers. The church was crowded. Every single person, family, and guest, was masked. Those few who were not masked on the street reflexively, dutifully, and unconsciously donned one as they drew near. It was done without hesitation, without a second thought; as customary as wiping your feet, or saying, "good morning."

This included my wife. She too, put on the mask and walked right in. I got near the doors, and felt that sickening rush of adrenaline. I could feel the amygdala hijack coming on. I balked, and walked off. I will not put that thing on  my face. Period. This has gone from  intense dislike, to aversion, to full blown phobia.  It has gone far deeper than a matter of principle. Remember Kevin McCarthy near the end of the old "Invasion of the Body Snatches?" The thought of strapping that filthy thing to my face, and being crowded into that church, elbow to elbow with hundreds of the faceless sent me into panic mode. I sat on a bench out front, and waited quietly for the service to be over.

Tue. 7/19

I spent the rest of the day, Monday, sanding. I started in dry with the 150 grit Emory cloth to work out the tool marks, and then stared the wet sanding with a couple of passes at 220 grit, then 320, and finished the day with one pass at 400 grit.

Close inspection this morning called for going back for another pass at 320, before working through 400, 600, 1000, then finally 2000 grit wet. Then it was soft cotton cloth, and Simichrome polish. It's wet messy work. After a while my hands were breaking out from the sweat and heat. It felt better to leave the rubber gloves off.

 

  Only problem with leaving the gloves off was that I sanded a goodly amount of skin, and even a little blood from my fingertips. They are now pink, silky smooth, and excruciatingly sensitive. Later today I'll go back and rough finish the base with some #2 gauge steel wool.

So now I have to take a break from the stones, let my fingers heal, and get the garage cleaned out again. (yuk)

Odd how stuff works, I clicked on facebarf, yesterday, and had a "your memory"  about cleaning out the garage from a few years back. Gosh, that's what they must mean when they say, "history repeats itself."

 

 Refinement

4:20 Monday morning. I'm sitting here at the desktop all bleary eyed from a second night of insomnia. When the sun comes up I'll snap a photo or two of the rock in its last phase before finishing.

Friday night I didn't sleep well. I got home Saturday, after the RatRod Ride, feeling exhausted and beat, even though I didn't smoke on the ride. Eighteen miles on the cruiser followed by the utterly miserable crawl through Beach Boulevard traffic just took it out of me. I turned in about eight, and woke at one. Repeat that for last night. So I'm sitting here feeling like total crap with another long hot day ahead.

Oh. Sun's up. Here:

Work has been steady, but slow. I'm coming close to the finishing stage of the project. As the sculpture progresses, the tools get smaller and smaller. I'm past the big tools, pretty much done with the middle size tools, and down to working with the small refining tools. I ordered a couple of new 8" rifflers from the Stone Sculptors Supplies gals up there in Sebastopol, CA.

And here they are:

  The 'knife and spoon' pair are my favorites for this stage of the game, but the ones I have are 20 years old, and dull. These little rasps are works of art in their own right. They are hand made by the Milani Tool Company in Italy, and they aren't cheap. But they are worth every penny. You can't say enough about the pleasure of working with fine tools.

The task, now, is to seek out, and terminate flat spots, straight lines, and awkward curves. The tricky part here is to shave off enough, but not too much. You always have to leave a little so that the sanding brings the lines to that 'just-right' place. This piece should go on the shelf in another week, maybe more. I made myself promise to attend to some domestic chores at the homestead. That garage... The Chinese elm... Stuff in the yard... 

Ugh. But it's gotta' be done.

 Getting Close to Home

Still scratching away at this piece, and it's looking like I'm close to the home stretch. The coil at the upper half of the figure is still a little ponderous. It's a flat heavy donut and needs to coordinate with the bottom half a little better. 

 

I'm exploring a couple or three ideas. Even at this stage, a lot of the work is just sitting and staring at the stone. Progress has been a little slow, what with getting the house and grounds ready for our July 4th BBQ.

 

 

 I'll probably have this on the shelf some time in the next couple of weeks. After that I'm forcing myself to step away from the carving table for long enough get the garage cleaned out. It's a mess. Not only that, I have to come up with a way to get the base cuts done on some of the new stones. The next two rocks are the  last of the stuff I got last September. Working them should carry me to the end of the year at least. They're both big, and heavy. I have a plan in mind for the 80 pound stone, but I'm still scratching my head over what to do with the 125 pound boulder. No doubt I'll come up with something.