• A granite gravestone

    Latest projects, Ov1

    Usually I do not write about the sculptures I execute for other sculptors, because it's their design and I can not go showing off with their work. But last month, I carved a granite tombstone to the design of sculptor Gerard Overeem. He was satisfied with the result and was happy with me mentioning it on this blog.
    The design is based on one of his early works, in possession of the customer.

    Cutting and Measuring

    sawing 5

    Gerard supplied me with the plaster model and a block of granite to size, on which I first started cutting away the excess. When all the unnecessary volumes were removed, I started measuring the relief of Mother and Child with compasses and transferred it into the granite.

    Finally, I copied all the "brute’ planes approximately. These didn't have to be copied literally, making this a lot easier to carve.

    tombstone, granite and model
    Granite and gypsum next to each other

    Surface finishing

    I have given the different areas of the sculpture various finishes: on the flat faces a chisel stroke with a narrow chisel, which I kept turning round. On the relief of mother and child the same thing, but with a much finer finish, so no roughness would hinder the depiction. Finally I carved lines with a toothed chisel on the 'brute’ surfaces at the bottom and at the rear.

    The finished granite gravestone
    The finished granite gravestone
    back
    back

    The attentive viewer will see that I have kept the womb and belly of the mother a bit fuller, these are some of those small changes that will be carried out after consultation.

    Master signs

    All in all a nice commission in between, also because I like to work in granite . In this case it was Spanish Rosa Porriño, a bit pinkish with little grey dots.

    Next week, the stone goes to the stonemason's shop, where the text will be added.

    A nice detail is that Gerard and I both carved our 'master sign’ into the side of the granite, with the consent of the client, of course. This goes back to a medieval tradition, when the stonemason signed each piece with his own stonemason's mark, that was used for quality control and, for counting production, during payout. So this gives a historical perspective as well.

    Nasty the first message about this project.

  • Cutting granite with an angle grinder

    Ov1

    Every once in a while I will carve a sculpture for another sculptor. This Saturday I started sawing a hefty block of granite for a tombstone. Because it's not my own design I will not say too much about it, but I can write something about the process.

    cutting granite with an angle grinder

    I started with a rectangular block of granite. When you need to cut away large pieces of stone with a angle grinder, it will be easiest to cut a number of parallel lines, as deep as the blade can get. Then, if you hit it with a lump hammer (club hammer, as they're also called) and give a number of blows next to each other on the side of the pre-cut strip, while moving back and forth over the entire length of the strip , it's possible to loosen a whole strip’ at a time. In the picture above you can see it well.

    I prefer to cut granite with water added, it helps against dust and overheating. The large pieces I just cut with an ordinary diamond blade , because it doesn't splash as much. Finally, I will cut the faces flush with a special flat blade, and that saves a lot of work during carving later on. Otherwise I would have ended up with a huge rough surface, that I would have had to carve flat with an (air) hammer and chisel.

    Today I made some good progress, by mid-day, the volumes were already becoming clear.

    sawing a granite gravestone with an angle grinder

    Nasty the next post about this project.

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