September 2013 - with the opportunity to participate at the BONS Open in Brunssum , The Netherlands, I offered to create the first place trophy.
Proud first owner of the Bons Open 1st place trophy:
Now for the process to get to this smile: ...
First ideas / sketches with a golf theme
Selected a stone based on size and form. I thought this was belgian blue stone as well, but it turned out to be
Green Granite :-) . A bit harder than I had bargained for.
Washing the grime of the stone gives a first impression of the colour the stone will be.
First Incisions to break off large pieces and create the base shape
Using a pneumatic hammer I break away the big chunks created with a diamond cutting blade specific for marble and natural stones
Before - with the cuts.
After using the pneumatic tools. Chipping off big chunks.
The advantage of this hard rock is - that, while it refuses to give away, it also refuses to break apart and split unexpectedly.
In
all my other sculptures I was never able to use so much force and abuse
a stone in such a fashion without it breaking apart … :-)
More cutting and chipping:
I
have now started to smooth out the rough parts using a diamond abrasive
disc . A convex metal disk with diamond bits embedded for a very rough
"sanding" and smothing action. This is excellent to even create
concave shapes in the stone.
(Visible on a later picture day 2)
It is getting dark - end of day 1 :
Rough
shape beginning to form, initial figurative element is changing more
into a abstract form. - deciding now to go with the abstract , since the
rock is too hard to work in more detail with my tools.
Day 2:
Wear
and tear. I used up 2 diamond cutting blades at this point, and found
out that the sand paper disc - very effective on Belgian blue stone is
utterly useless on this granite - the disc burns and doesn't make a
dent in the granite … need different approach for this stone.
With the diamond abrasive disk I am getting somewhere...
Even for small corrections I have to cut with the diamond cutter, then hammer with the chisel to get millimeters away.
It's starting to rain… What did you expect - it's holland :-)
Yes it is still raining , but I also washed away the dust to get a better idea on imperfections and where I need to continue:
On the left hand side you see a rough lump - this will be the base of the sculpture where it will stand on.
Cut away the base :
Shape is getting smoother.
I next tried a disk grinder - 60 grain , but the rock keeps burning
See the brown marks along the center of the sculpture
Now I start the sanding process.
Rough cut marks etc were ground away before , but the electric sander
doesn't work - so back to manual sand paper and lots of elbow grease )@(*#)@$ this rock is hard :-)
100 grain:
600 grain - Standing upright front:
Back
Wet sanding 100 grain:
Finally wet sanding 1200 grain:
First I used Marpol to polish the stone but I didn't like the final result, so now I
heat up the sculpture and use antique wax to finish the Stone.
Wax applied :
Polished: (moved back inside - dark and raining ) End of day 2.
Day 3. I intended to use a golf ball as "Head" of the sculpture, but this didn't work any more with how the form finally turned out. So i figured i use the little "foot" as rough and place the golf all at the bottom. Tried hard and finally found an unused Golf ball with a "1" on it … since this would be the Nr 1 trophy…
Drilling a hole in the rock carefully, using a steel pin and drilling a
hole in the Golfball - keeping in mind that the logo and number should
be readable from a angle from above…
Final result:
Again - This is where I started: :-)
|