Thread: Homemade accessories. (Stands, racks, displays)

Originally Posted by Substance

thats a tricky looking rest you made there Cangooner
how hard a material is the soap stone to work with ??

Thanks man.

It's very soft and can be worked with woodworking tools. Things to watch out for:

- it's very dusty. Working soapstone will result in a lot of talcum-like dust that gets into and onto *everything*!
- there are fault lines in the stone. If you don't pay attention, it will break on you in a heartbeat. The good news is that epoxy works well on it. There was actually a fairly big break on this stand that was epoxied together. I know it's there and if you look at it closely, you can see the repair, but it holds well.

Yeah I love that Cangooner. Looks natural but superbly functional. I still need to make a stand for my kamisori so I'm trying to soak up ideas...

Nice stand, Cargooner! Aren't you scared of hitting the edge on it when grabbing the kamisori or putting it down?

Ive worked with soapstone before, and its just like a hardwood (easy to sand etc).

Great stand by the way

Originally Posted by Substance

thats a tricky looking rest you made there Cangooner
how hard a material is the soap stone to work with ??

Originally Posted by Laurens

Nice stand, Cargooner! Aren't you scared of hitting the edge on it when grabbing the kamisori or putting it down?

Depends how it is used. If you placed the blade in vertically that could be an issue, but I slide it in horizontally and the edge stays well clear of the stone.

Originally Posted by RoyalCake

Yeah I love that Cangooner. Looks natural but superbly functional. I still need to make a stand for my kamisori so I'm trying to soak up ideas...

I think os has some magnets mounted as a razor holder for his kamisori's

Box for a seven day set of Kamis,Real lignum,ebony, ivory.

Wow, a lot of interesting stands and holders.

Attachment 153337

Cangooner, This is simply gorgeous.

If you would, I'd love it if you could provide a "How to" for working by hand with soapstone. I lack power-tools but have tons of hand tools. I'd love to put them to use!

Originally Posted by salvat36

Cangooner, This is simply gorgeous.

If you would, I'd love it if you could provide a "How to" for working by hand with soapstone. I lack power-tools but have tons of hand tools. I'd love to put them to use!

Thanks for the kind words. I'm afraid I take a very impressionistic approach that isn't easily explained: I look at the stone until I see what I'm trying to make, and then remove all the bits that don't belong.

The good news is that soapstone is beautiful material to work with and is *very* easily worked without power tools. Chisels, files, knives, hand saws, maybe a drill, and sandpaper are really (IMHO) all that is needed for most soapstone projects. I'd guess that 80% of my actual stock removal is done with one of two carving knives. One is a fixed blade knife with a curved blade ("Chip Knife #4 here), the other kind of like a beefed up xacto knife that I also use (mostly) with curved blades (This guy here).

That's purely personal preference drawn from carving tools I already had, so they may not be ideal for everyone. But they work for me. Other than that, normal woodworking rasps/files work great. Big chunks can be sawn off with a hand saw or coping saw. I'd recommend using a saw for removal of large chunks of stone as soapstone's natural fault lines can change your plans in a hurry if you try to carve out big pieces with a chisel!

I was never taught how to carve, so I generally recommend the same approach that I took and which I enjoy. Grab some material. Grab some tools. Make something.

Oh, and in terms of finishing the thing once it's done, two things have worked well for me:
1) rubbing on mineral oil
2) melting on beeswax

I think I prefer the beeswax finish, but that's purely subjective.