Post #266931 by Tamapoutini on Wed, Nov 15, 2006 1:02 PM

QueenK: Wonderful first attempts! I think you DO know what you are doing & just need to spend more time at the bench.

Love the little stone 'mask' fella especially!

To try & answer a couple of your questions, but am referring to stone grinding mainly...

A step I often use before sanding is to go over the carving again, running Dremel as slow as you can (5000-10000 rpm) & using DRY... This allows you to see what is going on and smooth out the form in a way that you cant when working under water. Use a dust mask!!

If you can get hold of some diamond 'cloth', this is a good way to start hand sanding. It acts as an (almost) ever-lasting sandpaper & can iron out a lot of ripples/scratches before moving on to wet n dry/carborundum paper, again I find hand sanding easiest & best. Go through grades of 240, 400, 800 (& then 1200 if you want) carb. paper, and this should give you some sort of polish. The degree of shininess really depends on the type of stone used...

Hope this helps. Keep it up!! Tama :)