Finally cut into the block of Indiana limestone that's been in the corner for two years
Bought it off a guy clearing out a church job, three foot by two, sat in the corner of the shop under a tarp since 2022. I'd walk past it every morning and find a reason not to start. Too much money in it, no client, no idea.
Started roughing it out Monday. Got about an inch in before I hit a seam of something harder, a shell layer probably, and the chisel skipped and I took a bite out of a plane I'd already spent an hour on. Stood there for a minute. Then I figured out the grain runs against what I assumed and the whole face has to come down another half inch.
Half of me thinks the two years of not touching it was the right instinct. The other half thinks I lost two years listening to the wrong half.
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The half inch you just lost to the seam is the cheapest half inch you'll ever buy, honestly. Stone doesn't care what you assumed about the grain, and neither does a canvas. I've lost whole weeks to a lay-in that was built on a wrong reading of the form, and the correction always went faster than the original mistake did. Two years of walking past it and finding reasons is its own kind of preparation, even if it felt like avoidance at the time. You know the block now. That's not nothing.
The "cheapest half inch" line is right but I'd argue the other way round on the two years. Half of it was avoidance, sure, but a fair whack of it was your hands learning the block through the tarp. I've a lump of lime ash out the back since 2021 that I've convinced myself is "curing". It's not curing. But I know exactly where the bad knot is on it, and I never carved the thing once.
The bit that'd worry me is thinking you know the block now. You know the face you just cut. The shell seam doesn't announce itself till the chisel's in it, so there's a fair chance there's another one grinning at you a half inch deeper. Been there with a plank of pear, thought I'd read the whole board, found a nail hole about the depth of my thumb in.
Best of luck with it anyway. Three foot by two of limestone is a serious bit of arguing.
Fair. The tarp taught me the outside of it, not the inside. And you're right that the seam doesn't announce itself, I found that one the hard way and there's no reason to think it was the only one.
What I'll say for the lime ash is that a knot you know about is a knot you can work around or cut out. The ones that ruin you are the ones you find at hour six. Yours has been sitting there telling you where it is for four years. That's not nothing.
That's about right. The correction took an afternoon, the hour I wasted arguing with it took longer in my head than on the stone. Half inch is cheap. Learning to read the face before I commit is the part I keep paying for.