Technical question re: stoning

[Claude]

Ok - why do you use a white stone in your rotary tool on a carving? I've seen the realistic bird carvers use it to get the individual feather fibers detailed (using the inverted cone), but why use a stone instead of a HS Steel or carbide burr? It seems to be that a relatively smooth stone would tend to burn the wood, instead of grinding it away...

For other types of carving, say a caricature face, why would you stone the carving instead of leaving the knife cuts, or using sandpaper, or a fine carbide burr? In other words, what are the advantages/disadvantages of stoning (in the non-Biblical sense...Smile)

Claude

[Paul_Guraedy]

Not being a caricature carver, I will leave that for someone else to tackle.

As to the white stones for feathers, fur, leaves, bark, etc.; I do use one. I also use a light touch as I am detailing rather than carving deeply. The same thing can be done with diamonds, rubies or steel; but, they are very agressive and tend to do a lot more than you want them to...in a hurry! I do clean and reshape the white stones fairly often keeping a sharp edge on them.

To confuse things even more, I often use pyrography rather than a white stone (or in combination with one) when carving the various things listed above. One thing about woodcarving, there are not too many absolutes, there are usually many ways of getting to the same end.

[Lynn O. Doughty]

The only time I've ever used a 'stone' on one of my characters is to do the texture on a pair of Angora Chaps or the fur on a Buffalo Robe or headress. Works pretty well except for the rough fuzz left behind. To get rid of this I use a butane torch and burn it off but have noticed these new little "finger" sanding wheels which I'm just going to have to check out. Anyone used them yet for something like this??

[Hugh]

The white stone is my favourite. Over the blue & red stones, the white leaves less damage to the wood. Also the white stone should be run at a very high speed to get the best results. At a high speed it is easier to control, and cuts cleaner. My favourite white stone is a cylinder stone, with a ridge cut near the top, and the end hollowed out. To do this I run the white stone in my micro motor, and use a pointed carbide bit to do the shaping.