How To Cut Soapstone By Hand

You must wear a mask during this process.

How to cut soapstone by hand. Tung oil or furniture polishing oil. Always inspect the soapstone slab to identify and locate veins prior to cutting and sanding. To be perfectly honest you can cut soapstone with a carpenters hand saw if need be and a circular saw with a masonry blade you wont even need a diamond blade will be plenty enough.

Hold the hammer in your dominant hand and the chisel in the other. Mark your cutting lines to split the sections into smaller blocks or bricks with the pencil. Move along the cut -- cutting the line 132 to 116 inch deep with each pass.

Like wood soapstone has a tendency to absorb oil. Once the piece is cut sand it with 36-grit sandpaper using a belt sander with a vacuum attachment Image 2. Cut 34 inch down on a 1 12-inch thickness soapstone slab then return to the starting point and cut the remaining depth.

Pour the oil directly onto the soapstoneits naturally non-porous so it wont absorb oil or moisture. Simmering actually then smudging it in sage and rubbing the warmed pipe bowl with beeswax is a way of purifying the pipe bowl. I know nothing about soapstone.

For example if you are right handed you will hold the hammer in your right hand. Due to its high talc content its reasonably simple to cut soapstone slabs with a regular circular saw fitted with a diamond-tip masonry blade. Avoid cutting directly through the white or brown veins when possible.

If you want a finished soapstone work to shine it must be properly treated and polished using the right kind of oil and the proper techniques. This is a demo of me cutting out a goose carving from soapstone using a saw designed for ceramic tile. Clean up the edges with a 60-grit in a belt sander then RO working from 80 to 180 or 200 to gut the rest of the scratches out.