3D Carving in Kasota Limestone

[rcnewcomb]

9" image carved with standard solid carbide bits. No special cooling.


2188

[myxpykalix]

looks very cool. What is the difference in the finished carving (wood vs stone) you can't sand it can you? Or does stone carve good enough not to have to?

[scottcox]

VERY cool! Can you tell us what type of bits you used?

[rcnewcomb]

To try carving limestone, start with the feedrates you use for hard maple and cut them in half, then gradually increase until you dial in to your optimum setting.

You can sand limestone with silicon carbide sandpaper. Usually you don't need to go finer than 200 grit unless you want a polished finish.

This was roughed out with 1/4" single flute Onsrud straight cut. Finish pass with 1/8" coated ballnose from MCLS with an 8 percent stepover. If the design had been deeper I would have used one of the bit from Gary Beckwith.

[harold_weber]

Did you pick Kasota limestone because it was available locally or does it have some desirable properties compared to other limestones? Bedford limestone is local to my area, its mostly grayish white in color.

[rcnewcomb]

Kasota is what the wholesaler has been giving me to try, though on this last visit they gave me a 2"x12"x36" slab of Indiana Limestone which has a gray color -- it almost looks like a slab of concrete. They said this should be softer than the Kasota. Now I have to come up with a nice 3D design to fit the stone.

FYI, Kasota is about 4 times more expensive than the Indiana.