by Everett Olson
(Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA)
I live in Baton Rouge Louisiana USA now but am from England. It was there that I went to night school and did a stone carving class at the Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham, really enjoyed it, bought some chisels and have been carving on and off for about 10 years now. The stone is Texas Limestone, bought from a landscape stone supplier (the only place I can get stone locally).
Although the tools below are sold through Amazon. They are the same as the stone carving tools that I personally recommend to my students for carving with Oamaru stone.
Poratable Workbench
These benches are height adjustable which makes them perfect for stone carving. I own the Ryobi workbench and love it, but unfortunatlly it is only sold through Amazon's UK store for people that are wanting to buy it online.
Stanley: Surform Shaver
This is a must-have tool for shaping large areas of Oamaru stone
Riffler Files
These are smaller files that are designed for the parts of your sculpture that are difficult to get at. They are also an essential set of tools
Builders Pencils
Crosscut Hand Saw
This type of crosscut hand saw is my recommendation for cutting Oamaru stone
Keyhole Handsaw
A very handy saw. Mosty used for sawing after a hole after it has been drilled into the stone.