Queensday 2012 - infinite rings - sculpting with my daughter

Today I was helping my daughter to sculpt two connected rings from an African serpentine / spring stone.

She wants'  to present her Teacher with a wedding present 100% self-made.

The first attempt from a leftover Soapstone failed when we tried to drill out the rings.

We bought a new stone – this time a piece of African spring stone or serpentine.

First step, cut out a cross (each bar for one ring)

Concentration…

And a helping hand… to keep the ever shrinking stone stable...

(watch the fingers)

Shaping the rings (cutting off the excess edges)

And this is where the stone broke along one of the layers and half the ring broke off.

So we packed up and bought a new , larger stone the next day.

This time an African Spring stone or Serpentine (green). Less layers and it was larger (5kg).

Since I broke the previous stone trying to drill the holes, I started on the stone again to

Get back to where we had left off the day before.

(didn't want to put her through all the sawing again, to not frustrate her or loose interest).

So we ended up with the same cross again :-)

Indication of the intended size and position of the rings.

Now take of the corners and get to the rings:

Drilling again - very carefully this time.

Drilling out the center connection of the two rings was critical.
I finally succeeded by drilling diagonally through the connection of the rings and using a thin band saw blade

to disconnect the remaining stone fragments left by the drilling.

This time my daughter forms the rings only after I succeeded in disconnecting the rings.
(in case I broke it again…)

Working in the sunshine (I got a nice sunburn..)

Tools Used:

Rounding off the edges , a lot of work in a relatively hard stone...

Inside - even more difficult (I had to hold up the loose 2nd ring to prevent it from being damaged while my daughter held the other ring steady and worked on the inside :

  

Current result (both Dad and daughter tired, but what a quality day ;-) )

More to follow.