First Stone Ones

[Craftdiggity]

Hey folks. These are my first attempts at working with stone. I used cheaper kits so as not to waste expensive ones if I screwed em all up. I stuck with slimline and cigar styles for these.

From left to right:

Translucent Orange Alabaster Slimline
White Translucent Alabaster Slimline
Italian Green Soapstone Slimline
African Wonderstone Soapstone Slimline
Translucent Orange Alabaster Cigar
African Wonderstone Soapstone Cigar
Italian Green Soapstone Cigar
White Translucent Alabaster Cigar
Translucent Orange Alabaster Cigar

Comments/Critiques always welcome. Thanks for looking.

Chris

 

[thewishman]

WOW!!! Love the green soapstone! The orange alabaster is great, too.

Very nice work!

 

[scotian12]

You are to be congratulated on your workmanship. These are not easy materials to work with or assemble. Beautiful looking pens. Darrell Eisner

 

[CaptG]

Great looking pens. Very nice work. I say it is time to move to the higher end kits.

 

[workinforwood]

Nice looking set of pens Chris.

 

[witz1976]

Wow those are stunning!!!

 

[jbostian]

Great group of pens! I really like the translucent orange alabaster. Where did you get the blanks?

Jamie

 

[CSue]

All look great! Wonderful work. You must have a great sharpening system!

 

[bgibb42]

Those are awesome! Can't decide which I like better--the orange alabaster or the white alabaster.

 

[bitshird]

That is a very fine group of pens, I would have a hard time choosing any one of them, you did an excellent job with a difficult material.

 

[seamus7227]

sweet! Is that real stone or the true stone? did you use any special tools?

 

[Craftdiggity]

Wow. Thanks for all the kind responses. I put this up last night and got busy today and forgot all about it until now. To answer some questions:

They are all real stone, not truestone. I have access to a great deal of stone materials as my brother has a marble and granite business and I can track down most anything. The cool thing about that is I get to sample a range of different colors as they become available.

Believe it or not, the soapstone turns quite easily, somewhat like a harder wood, but very smoothly. The alabaster is far more brittle and requires much more sharpening. Also, you have to plan on the translucence of the alabaster. Near the ends of the blanks where the material is at its thinnest, you can sometimes see the tubes, so I painted all of the tubes white.

I used my regular turning tools for all of the pens.

If anyone is interested in working with this stuff, let me know. I buy it by the pound, or if I have enough interest, by the slab.


Chris

 

[ROOKIETURNER]

Nice looking pens. I have yet to try any stone. Sounds like a challenge to me...

 

[gvanweerd]

You Need around of appluse for those:bananen_smilies046:

 

[workinforwood]

So how did you drill the 10 mm hole...regular drill bit?

 

[Rfturner]

I know that soapstone is fairly soft, you can mark it with your fingernail, those pens look great

 

[Craftdiggity]

So how did you drill the 10 mm hole...regular drill bit?

Standard 10mm Brad tip. I bought a couple just for drilling stone. I keep a small squirt bottle filled with water to keep things cool. The Soapstone doesn't even get all that hot and works just like a hard wood. The Alabaster is a bit more brittle and will crack if you breathe on it, especially the white. If I take my time with the Orange, I can drill with little or no cracking. It is stone though, so if you work with it, learn to love the cracks or you'll go crazy.

Ryan, the Italian Green is pretty soft, but the African Wonderstone is much harder and you'd have to press pretty hard to mark that stuff with your fingernail.

Chris

 

[RMB]

You should definitely start doing those with some high end kits.

Is there a finish on those? Soak them in CA or something and polish?

 

[Craftdiggity]

You should definitely start doing those with some high end kits.

Is there a finish on those? Soak them in CA or something and polish?

No, I hate CA finishes. The high gloss is great, but it feels like plastic to me.

On stone, what I do is use mineral oil to enhance the color and then just a simple paste wax which I apply on the lathe.


Chris