[MR] Cutting soapstone into slabs

[James Burts]

My experience in cutting *soapstone* wan't all that pleasant.  The 
soapstone I had was old chemistry lab desk material.  It is full of various 
inclusions-- some talc, some iron.

I do all my casting with african wonderstone.  It is so much easier to work 
with, I wouldn't even think about going back to soapstone.  The wonderstone 
is free of inclusions, and has even finer grain than soapstone (so you can 
get much better detail).

I cut my stone with a bandsaw, and it works wonderfully.  I have a blade 
that I only use for stone (so I don't care if it is dulled), and change it 
out when I'm cutting wood.  With wonderstone, I've cut an entire 
12"x10"x10" block into molds with a single blade.  With a sharp blade, 
wonderstone cut like butter, soapstone with it's inclusions was a real pain 
(and dulled the blade quite a bit).  For the soapstone, you may want to 
find a blade intended for cutting metal-- it should hold up longer.

--James--

James Byngham, OL



--On Friday, August 23, 2002 10:49 AM -0400 Ceara ni Neill 
<ceara at HouseBarra.com> wrote:

> I havent' had that experience, but it seems to me a table saw with a
> masonry blade should work. Soapstone is a very soft stone, after all....
>
> --
> Ceara ni Neill
> http://HouseBarra.com
>
>
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