Fickle Finger of Fate

I picked up this long skinny piece of scrap limestone from a friend. At first it didn't seem to be usable. Then I found an abstract version of the flying finger of fate in it.

Here's the layout. The verticle lines are on the "Golden Ratio" line segments (see Wikipedia). This will make the curves "pleasing to the eye"...see also "The Golden Ratio - The Story of PHI. The Worlds Most Astonishing Number" a book by Mario Livio.

I used the angle grinder to rough it out.

Then I knocked off the excess stuff.

After a little refinement with the tooth chisel I'm starting to worry about breaking the finger off.



I have to admit I used a power tool to remove most of the material around the finger. Then rasp, rasp, rasp until to this point.


More rasping and a little sanding and this is it so far. Several of my friends don't see the finger from the pictures. Do you?

Endless Knot

According to Wikipedia:

"The Endless knot or Eternal knot (Sanskrit: Shrivatsa; Tibetan "Dpal be'u") is a symbolic knot found in Tibet and Mongolia. The motif is used in Tibetan Buddhism, and may also be found in Chinese art as one of the Eight auspicious symbols."

I hope I don't offend anyone (or any god) by what I do to this thing...

This stone is large enough for two designs so I'll layout half, carve it, layout the other half, carve that one, then cut the stone in two...at least that was the plan.

Below I've decide what needs to get cut out and have started hacking.

Below, I've kind of traced out the overs and unders with the chisel just in case I make a mistake.

It's difficult to tell but I've deepened the sketchy lines to make the design pop out.

This design was almost done and I started to think about a design to carve in the other half when the awful realization hit me that I could spend a lot of time carving two designs and then screw up one or both when trying to cut the stone in two.

So I decide to cut it in two pieces now using a common circular saw with a masonry blade...maybe not the best choice.

Lessons Learned:
1. Do the cutting outside.
2. Close all doors and windows if near to the house, the dust blows in the windows.
3. Wear protective clothing, breathing mask, full face mask and hat - see Darth Vader in first post.
4. Don't try to cut all the way through the stone in one pass.
5. Don't expect to be able to see the cut line, it will be covered by dust within seconds. Stop and clear it off.
6. Warn the neighbors, they may think the limestone dust cloud created is smoke and call the fire department.

So I cut it in half and I did screw up the other half so I'm glad I didn't carve that side. I used the toothed chisel again on the borders to make the design pop out.

Here's the finished product and also with the "Flower of Life" from the previous post below.

Flower of Life

According to Wikipedia:

"The Flower of Life (commonly abbreviated as FOL) is the modern name given to a geometrical figure composed of multiple evenly-spaced, overlapping circles, that are arranged so that they form a flower-like pattern with a sixfold symmetry like a hexagon. The center of each circle is on the circumference of six surrounding circles of the same diameter..."

Starting to lay out the design - see the picture at they right of my 99 cent compase? This could get complicated!

Here is the layout of the design. Now I need to decide what parts get removed.

I suppose I could have done a negative - where the design is removed - but I decided to do a positive - the parts in between get removed. As I started to remove material the pencil lines started to disappear. Since the design took a rather long time to recreate, I decided to use a diamond tipped Dremel to scratch the design into the stone.

Progress?

Whoops! So the border is screwed up...what to do?

Cover it up with a tooth chizel of course. Here's the final.