Whats Your Favourite Stone?

I’m sure every carver would answer this question differently! Read to find out what mine is.

What characteristics do you look for?

When I returned from living abroad I discovered a real connection with carving British stone. This is not something I had been particularly aware before, but all of a sudden I found the familiarity and locality really reassuring.

In the carving world we talk about how well a stone can ‘hold an edge‘. By this I really mean the how crumbly the stone is. For letter carving or the type of geometric carving I create, I’m looking to try and achieve a really sharp transition between the surface of the stone and the cut made with the chisel. Too crumbly and that won’t be possible.

So which is your favourite?

So, with that in mind, my favourite stone is Welsh slate. It has an incredible dark grey colour when sanded and is unbelievably smooth to touch. In contrast when you cut it, it’s a lovely light grey colour giving a beautiful contrast. Also as it is made up from compressed fine clay it holds a great edge and amazingly fine detail can be achieved in the carving.

Slate does however have a few drawbacks, the biggest being that it wants to break in layers called laminating. It’s important to maintain a really sharp chisel and a methodical approach to the carving to try and mitigate this. For me the outcome far outweighs the difficulties of the material.

Slate also can’t be quarried in particularly thick pieces, so I’m not able to get any thick enough for a sphere.

‘Flourish’ carved in welsh 

if not slate, what else?

My next favourite is Portland Limestone. This beautiful buff coloured stone is well known to many, as a huge proportion of buildings in London are made from it. It’s both practical as a building stone and also for holding details carving as well. Depending on the depth of the stone it can be full of fossils or have none at all. For carving fossil free makes for a lovely consistent texture.

Portland is also a very pretty light colour, with enough character to look interesting and not too concrete-like as can sometimes happen.

A portland Limestone sphere being carved on my bench 

Do you carve sandstone?

If we’re heading into pretty stones then I really like Corsehill. A Scottish red sandstone widely used throughout the buildings in Edinburgh, this lovely pink stone glimmers gentle in the sunshine. When wet it turns a fantastic deep red shade. The main drawback to this sandstone is the due to its sandy makeup the grains of sand are too large to be able to ‘hold a good edge’

When I carve Corsehill I always ensure I have a bolder pattern to carved something with less fine detail and intricate lines so that I’m not fighting against the natural properties of the stone.

Sometimes I buy the stone to suit the design and other times I choose the stone most suitable to achieve the pattern.

‘Vector’ Carved in Corsehill Sandstone