Near by Quarries stone mills where you can gather milled stone cheep

[Paddy]

I live in Southern Indiana, big limestone producers. We have the full range of crushed stone to fine stone carvings and milled building material. Many of the mills are also quarries, but not all. Most floks like me go for the mill scraps and odd lots. In some cases, shade is just off a bit. In others, there is a fault/crack in the block.

The mill I "shop" at is 1 cent per lb, or $20/ton. Not bad for milled stone with 6 good clean sides. Some times of the years there is 5 ac to pick from. But they do clean up and just push it back in the old quarry hole. : (

I play with stone a bit, cheaper than golf. I carve panels out of flat blanks, approx 18" by 18" at 1-1/2" thick. See a recent example. I'd want to know if you folks have mills/quarries in your neck of the woods where, say marble can be had in a similar way?? If I can ID a good spot, I'll plan a road trip

I recall there is Georgia marble and some place in the North east

 

[Mace Canute]

That's amazing! :thumbsup: I couldn't replicate that out of MDF.

 

[texasjohn]

Limestone quarries all around here, major industry for our little town. Crushed, blocks, slabs. No marble.

 

[vtsnowedin]

Here they quarry granite and down in Proctor VT there are Marble quarries. Granite is a lot harder then limestone and harder to work with. My father worked for years running polishing machines in the stone sheds in Barre VT.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I ran into a guy at a flea market selling rock art ( pictures and letter carving on the rock faces) He just drives around till he finds a creek or area by the road with rocks and harvests what he needs. He had some fine examples of his work and at reasonable costs. I wouldn't even pick up the rocks for what he was selling them for.

 

[riptides]

Nothing around here. Some are still looking for gold.

Fantastic work on that stone. What are you cutting with? Really nice.

 

[Paddy]

The tools I use are Circle saw with diamond blade, 4" angle grinder with diamond wheel, diamond drill bits, tile files and riffler files. In the case of this pc, a compass to lay it out.

I make panels, so the first step is to cut down the face 5/8" deep to get a frame. Once I grind it smooth, I lay out the design. Carefully drilling and filing to the line.

Limestone is not bad to work with because it relatively soft. But the grain is large, i.e. full of crinoid fossils that are harder than a bugger. I want to try with white marble because the grain is much smaller and can be polished. It is a bit harder but not by much. In fact, marble is just aged limestone. I will be in Carrara Italy this summer but can only drool : ( That is why I'm hoping to hear from my TBN friends for a marble mill/quarry that has a scrapyard. Unfortunately, counter top material is just to thin.

 

[JRobyn]

When I was a kid, there was what I believe was a "monument" maker right by my dad's office. They would take large blocks and trim them down to finished size before final finish/polishing. IIRC, it was mostly granite. Dad would go by there after work on Fridays and load up his trunk with perfect-thickness and sized pieces for pavers. He pieced them together into really nice paths and sidewalks all around the house.

- Jay

 

[Paddy]

Thank you Mace and Riptides. Just having fun during a cold winter. I first started messing with limestone years ago but it was getting paver stones from the old mills. Bloomington IN has a bit of a mythical history with it's quarries. There was a movie called "Breaking Away" about the little 5 bike race held at IU. The university kids lost to a team called the Cutters, aka, limestone cutters. There are scenes of the local quarries where kids still sneak in to swim on hot days. The original quarries started in the mid 1800's but, they have chased the good stone 30 mi south. I get all the limestone I want and it's a nice resource. Old parts of town have houses with sidewalks made of 3 ft by 10 ft slabs of stone. The good o'l days.

 

[Sysop]

Great Grandpa quarried stone off one side of our farm for the foundation of the house that currently stands, which has several 45 degree cuts, both inside and outside cuts, as well as other stonework he cut for the house like the 6' wide front stairs. Still lots of pieces that broke or didn't cut right up on the hill that were never hauled down. There are still even wooden crates around marked "BLAST-O-MITE" on them in his old workshop.

His stone cutting was nothing like yours. Art of a different sort... Your work is nothing short of amazing.