Using impregnations for stone, what to look for when choosing. Methods for processing and refining precious stones Methods for mass processing and polishing of small stones

Natural stones vary in their chemical composition, rock structure, strength, therefore different types stones are suitable for different types processing. At the same time, using various types processing to the same type of stone, you will get a surface with completely different decorative properties.

Polishing

Polishing is the most common type of processing of natural stones. Polishing is usually carried out in factories using a conveyor belt. First, the stone is processed with abrasive tools, and then fine polishing is carried out with cloth or felt wheels. Polishing a stone reveals its color and natural pattern. Marble and granite are most often polished.

Polishing

If they want to achieve a smooth, but not mirror-like surface, they use polishing. Polishing is carried out using cloth wheels on which abrasive powder is applied, making the surface matte, leaving the smallest scratches on it. Polished stones are most often used for exterior decoration.

Grinding

Polished stones, according to GOST, may have relief irregularities of up to 0.5 mm. This processing is carried out using grinding wheels on special machines. The polished surface hides the pattern of the stone, walking on polished stone is much more comfortable, the sole does not slip, which is why polished stone is a common material for laying floors.

Sawing processing

Sawing is most often used for processing sandstone and felsite. Sawing is carried out using machines with a saw frame or using ultrasound. The surface processed by sawing may have unevenness up to 2 mm. Sawing can be done using various abrasives, which makes the surface of the stone rougher or smoother. The use of ultrasound makes it possible to reveal the color and pattern of the stone, despite the high surface roughness.

Smooth stones allow you to create a single monolithic surface, while stones with relief processing create a dissected plane.

Heat treatment

When the stone is heated strongly, its top layer begins to melt, forming a special type of texture - roughness with peeling.

Bush hammering

Bush hammering is carried out using a machine with drums, which, during processing, tap the stone and knock down the top layer. Bush hammered stone can have relief unevenness up to 5 mm; its texture is similar to asphalt.

There are also types of stone processing such as etching, electric current and water treatment, sandblasting.

Chipping

Slate is usually processed by cleaving. Chipping gives the stone an uneven, rough texture, similar to natural chipping

The use of stone in the design of apartments and houses has long become a classic of the genre. However, processing this material, unlike wood, is impossible without the use of special tools and equipment.

Manipulations require patience, physical effort and knowledge of the basics of processing technology. The surface of the natural type of stone is quite hard. If you use modern equipment for processing and know technological secrets, you can cope with the task quite simply.

Processing depth

When processing stone, you can give the surface a certain texture, which can be achieved by grinding and multi-transition processing. Today there are four known design options for the treated surface, among them the following should be highlighted:

• chopped;
• impaled;
• rough grinding;
• polished or matte;
• polished.

The first looks like a natural chip that is formed when splitting an array. Stone slabs with such a plane are more often used for finishing basement parts and creating fences.

Stone processing may involve the creation of a rough grinding surface that has a smooth geometric shape combined with a rough base. When using rough grinding, the material is used for the production of building blocks, paving stones, the construction of fences and fences, as well as the formation of porch steps and borders.

Stone processing may involve creating a matte or polished surface, which can be achieved by polishing without removing the mirror. The stone turns out smooth, but not shiny. It is used for finishing and facing work.

For monuments, sculptures and when decorating façade elements, a polished surface is used. If you resort to manual processing, the implementation of the idea may take several weeks or months of monotonous hard work. It would be more advisable to use power tools and available materials.

You can make a rough countertop or simple paving stones yourself if you are familiar with the characteristics of the rock and its structure. The easiest to process are:

• calcite;
• silicates;
• sandstones.

Their low hardness makes it possible to simply give the material the required geometric shape. But such rocks are rarely subjected to further processing; they are usually polished in a semi-rough manner. The cladding for a fence or the base of a building is easier to make from calcined sandstone, which is quite common and is also called shepherd stone.

The material received its name for its ability to split into even, identical tiles, the size of which is several tens of centimeters. Tiles can be sanded river sand to smooth out unevenness. This allows you to use the resulting products for laying the courtyard of a house or improving the basement.

Processing methods and techniques

Stone processing remains unchanged for many years. The standard set of technological techniques involves cutting and disassembling the massif, layers, boulders and large blocks into light and small parts that can be transported and then processed. This stage is complex, and competent processing allows you to reduce cutting costs and eliminate splitting along non-designed trajectories.

Processing natural stone the next stage involves leveling the surface and trimming the plane. The process uses stone-cutting hand tools or special machines. Wet or rough grinding is carried out with homemade sanding boards or heavy cast iron plates, the former of which are made of bog oak or soft stones.

Upon completion of this operation, a finished product with a closed or unpolished surface is obtained. Stone processing at home may include polishing with further grinding as an artistic treatment. At this stage, you can get a mirror and see the pattern, as well as the design on the surface.

For DIY processing, you can use power tools, but sawing and grinding work is carried out under a hood, since the resulting dust can affect the respiratory system. To confirm this, it should also be said that crumbs will accumulate on brushes, transmission mechanisms and open gearboxes. The same principle is used to process artificial stone.

Sawing and piercing

The most common methods of dividing an array into smaller layers is pricking. For further processing, defect-free and flat layers are used, the thickness of which reaches 10 cm. In order to obtain such a piece, holes are drilled in the array, located sequentially. Their depth should be equal to the thickness of the piece being broken off. Then you need to use a hammer and a hardened chisel to break through the cut line.

After some time, the material will crack. Additionally, you can use a diamond tool. The broken off layers are cut using cast iron discs coated with diamond. Using a grinder with a cutting diamond blade, the material should be cut along the splitting line to a depth of 20 mm.

The slab is laid on two oak beam supports so that the groove is above the far support. A pine strip is laid on the cut, and then the division line should be hit with a hammer. When choosing a tool for stone processing, you may prefer a construction hammer with a pobedit tip. It allows the stone to be split into separate blocks, from which paving stones or cladding are made.

Grinding Methods

After the massif has been divided into blocks and slabs, artistic processing of the stone can be carried out. It involves rough grinding. In order to make the surface flat and remove bumps and protrusions, the stone is ground with a cast-iron plate, onto which a thin layer of abrasive material is applied.

Methodology

First you need to apply a layer of coarse sand moistened with water. A cast iron slab is laid on top, which will allow the sand layer to grind on the base. In order to make the labor-intensive process of grinding and roughening more productive, you can use a homemade stone processing machine, which is a heavy steel table. A rotating cast iron circle with a diameter of 70 cm is installed on it. The surface must be periodically moistened with water and abrasive, then the slab or paving stones being processed are laid front side down.

Choice of abrasive and abrasive

For quartzites, limestones, marble-like materials and sandstones, basalt or fine granite dust can act as an abrasive during roughing. When you have to work with heavy and hard rocks, you should grind them with a special tool. In industrial processing, crushed cast iron shot is used to grind granite. This processing depth will be sufficient for paving stones, step slabs and paving slabs. For façade finishing elements, finishing grinding must be performed.

Final stage

Finish grinding is carried out using grinding powders with different grain sizes. More often these are calibrated powders of sintered silicon carbide or aluminum oxide. Processing is carried out with electric grinders, which are equipped with plastic or thick rubber attachments. It is applied to the surface. The nozzles rotate at high speed, which requires uniform and dosed pressing of the angle grinder to the surface. Otherwise, the plane may be pressed through, and local overheating will occur.

In conclusion

Finish grinding is accompanied by the formation large quantity dust, so the surface must be regularly moistened with water. Exposed areas of the face and hands should be covered with gloves and a mask. In order to give the leveled surface a shine, you should use felt cloth circles with polishing pastes.

Natural stone is a material that has excellent aesthetic and performance parameters and allows you to create a luxurious visual picture when finishing the interior space and when cladding the facade of buildings. Natural stone remains one of best options to create decorative interior elements -, etc. At the same time, achieve ideal aesthetics without primary processing natural stone impossible.

The mechanism for working with such a monolithic natural material involves several stages of complex processing, which creates a completely unique visual component at each stage and makes natural stone also an aesthetically variable material.

The JazzStone company offers comprehensive services for processing natural stone and creating exclusive interior models that will become the best decoration your home and office.

Stages of processing natural stone

Textured mechanical processing is primarily aimed at creating a special surface structure that emphasizes the beauty and attractiveness of the natural patterns of the rock. In their work, JazzStone specialists use the following stages and options for processing marble, granite and other types of natural stone:

• Sawing. A rough method of stone processing that involves the use of wire saws, diamond circular saws or band saws to obtain a rough, uneven surface of the material. Sawing is the first step to secondary processing methods, and stone slabs made in this way are used to create facade compositions and garden paths.
• Grinding. This stage is carried out on special grinding machines in order to level the surface of the sawn stone. This technique is used only for light-colored stones, since grinding reduces the contrast and brightness of the colored material. Polished stone - best choice for finishing floors and stair structures.
• Polishing. The next stage of processing after grinding, which forms a smoother and more even surface, which is valuable when creating flooring and facing compositions. Abrasive materials are used for polishing purposes.
• Polishing. The polished form is true perfection among the processed options of natural stone, because the surface of such a material is mirror-smooth and glossy, which creates a luxurious and noble aesthetic. This processing method maximizes the natural palette of the stone, emphasizing the advantages and texture of the material. This effect is achieved by using fine abrasives, which is especially effective when applied to marble and granite, which are susceptible to such complex mechanical influences. Polished stone is used primarily for finishing interior decorative and working elements, such as bar counters, bathtubs, countertops, mosaics and panels.

In addition to classical processing techniques, methods are often used to achieve non-standard aesthetic effects. In this regard, our employees are proficient in the following techniques for working with natural stone:

• Heat treatment - exposure to a directed jet of air supplied from high temperature. The texture takes on an uneven, rough appearance after firing the soft particles and grains of the stone surface.
• Bush hammering — processing of the material by impact loads of carbide tools, in order to form a relatively flat, but at the same time rough surface.
• Sandblasting - under the influence of a directed stream of air with a fine abrasive, it is possible to obtain excellent aesthetics, rough and somewhat wavy stone.
• Chipping - produced either manually or using special equipment and makes it possible to recreate the effect of natural relief chipping on the surface of the stone. These types of materials are called “Rock” and are used for cladding buildings, emphasizing the solidity, naturalness and relief of the design. In addition, “Skala” is harmoniously combined with landscape design elements.
• Etching - involves acid treatment in order to dissolve the softest structures of the stone and results in an original, intricate pattern. Due to its high cost, it is mainly used for marble rocks.
• Aging or antique - based on manual and abrasive work with the material, which creates an uneven, visually aged surface with channels and chips.
• Split - the result of the work of a special tool that splits a monolithic surface, creating an uneven “torn” texture.

Processing natural stone and creating unique decorative compositions is the main profile of our work, in which we are leaders and 100% professionals. By contacting the JazzStone company, you will be offered everything possible options processing of natural stone, as well as wide range color solutions.

Prices and availability of material can be clarified by phone.

Cutting, polishing and processing stone at home, homemade machine

Rings with radiant gems. Pendants, earrings, cufflinks and other jewelry with stones. Writing instruments, sculptures. Columns and plinths of buildings.

In all these cases, stones perfectly fulfill the role of artistic, sculptural and building material, and serve as the main detail of an artistic and applied composition.

Beautiful stones? But the most ordinary, ordinary, not precious.

The stone does not reveal its beauty to everyone: it gives the most amazing things to the hardworking. And the work is to correctly cut the stone, grind it, polish it or process it into the intended shape. For the labor spent on it, the stone will give a picture that it has preserved for thousands of years, it will come to life and sparkle with fancy colors and shades. And, once experiencing the joy of “discovering” a stone, seeing something amazing in it, a person inevitably falls in love with the stone.

Loving stone is one of the wonderful hobbies. Stone lovers collect all minerals, including ore rocks. But special attention is given to agates, jaspers, flints and transitional forms of these minerals. These seemingly ordinary stones are truly limitless in their diversity. And there are countless deposits. In Moscow itself, in Rublev, there are a lot of flints. In Dmitrov - agate flints. In Golutvin, a few minutes drive from Moscow, there are agates and flints. In Stupino, also near Moscow, there are agates and crystal brushes.

But in the whole country there are countless deposits that are interesting for stone lovers - these are the mountainous regions of the Urals, Transbaikalia, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, Karelia, and the whole country.

But finding a stone is only the first stage. This is followed by processing. The stone is cut using so-called cutting discs, which are sold in diamond tool stores.

The cutting discs used by hobbyists have a diameter of 125 to 200 millimeters and are driven by a 160-200 watt motor through a belt drive.

The stone is cut at a peripheral speed of the disk from 20 to 30 meters per second. Be sure to have plenty of water cooling on both sides of the disk.

How to make a stone cutting machine at home

And how exactly to make a machine for cutting stone at home, how to provide cooling to it, this type of creativity is left to the amateur himself. View the design of the machine -

Grinding stone to obtain flat plates can be done on ordinary glass using abrasive powders.

A few drops of water on the glass and a small portion of powder - and you can start. During the grinding process, powder is added in small portions as the abrasive wears down, and water is added to maintain a creamy consistency on the glass.

When moving from large fractions of powder to smaller ones when grinding, the glass being ground and your hands must be washed with soap and water and a brush: if even a few large grains get into the small fraction of the powder, the work will be ruined.

After grinding, the stone is polished on a mechanical felt or felt wheel with a diameter of 150 to 200 millimeters. When polishing, you need chromium oxide powder and water. The rotation speed of the circle is from 400 to 700 rpm.

I only talked about one method of processing stone, but there are many of them. For stone lovers, we can offer one of the rational designs of a machine for processing small-sized stones. The structure of the machine is clear from the diagram, so we will give only some recommendations.

As a motor, it is better to use commercially available electric motors for washing machines- single-phase, with a power of 180 to 230 watts and developing 1400 rpm. With such engine characteristics, the pulleys can be two-stage, with gear ratios of 1:1 and 1:0.35.

The first gear is convenient for processing stone on faceplates with fixed abrasive material, and the second is faster for processing stone with bulk abrasive.

For transmission it is convenient to use a V-belt from the Zaporozhets car. The faceplate mounting thread can be either right or left-handed, as long as the faceplate does not twist off its axis when working under load.

The size of the trough for collecting sludge should be approximately twice the diameter of the faceplate, and the height of the sides should be two centimeters higher than the surface of the faceplate. You can attach rubber to the side walls of the trough so that a stone that accidentally jumps out of your hands does not break.

Let me remind you that all stone processing is carried out with water, but the dropper on the machine is used only when working on faceplates with a fixed abrasive. When processing with bulk abrasive, it is best to wet the stone with water in a separate bath.

Of course, you should have a set of faceplates for the machine: cast iron, wood, metal with felt and felt glued on. This set is necessary for step-by-step processing and polishing.

Young technician - for skilled hands 1985-04, page 14

Dry cleaning can also be used to remove surface deposits. Its advantage is that the samples suffer less from scratches and chips. At home, a 5-15 percent solution of hydrochloric or oxalic acid is used for this. But first you need to make sure that your minerals do not dissolve in acid. Aragonite and azurite should not be treated with acid; they dissolve in it very quickly. Minerals such as turquoise and lapis lazuli are processed very carefully, since they, although slowly, dissolve in acid. To soften organic residues that may be found on the surface of the samples, they are soaked in acetic acid. Fatty compounds are removed with gasoline and acetone.

Some preparations are very effective for chemical cleaning of minerals. household chemicals For example, carbonate lime shells can be removed from minerals by boiling them with Antina-kipin. Cleans well even hard-to-reach surface areas detergent"Progress". At the last stage of chemical treatment, transparent minerals can be cleaned well with glass and crystal cleaners (for example, IPA).

A “chemical bath” is very effective if minerals are boiled under pressure in a pressure cooker. At the same time, steam penetrates into the most inaccessible places. After processing, the stones are thoroughly washed with clean water.

CLEAVING AND CUTTING

Cleaned and washed stones must be sorted. Some hobbyists collect only fossils or beautiful specimens, mineralogical rarities. Many collectors subject specimens to grinding and polishing. This helps to more fully reveal the beauty of the stone. Experienced amateurs find such planes in the stone, cutting along which you can see the play of colors, reminiscent of landscapes, or even portraits.

Beautiful, but less interesting stones for the collection can be put aside for crafts: mosaics, boxes, carvings. Some lovers try to emphasize the beauty of the stone by combining it with metal and wood.

Before you start working on the craft, you need to split the stone, removing all excess. For splitting (preparing) large samples, special devices should be made: a clamp with two teeth made of hardened metal or a vice in which two corners with pobedit teeth are mounted (Fig. 7).

The stone is cut with special diamond wheels or commercially available diamond saws. The cutting and grinding machine can be assembled on the base of an electric sharpener or an EZS-1 electric drilling device (Fig. 8). It has two shaft outputs, one equipped with a chuck 6, the other with an emery wheel or a special faceplate with a diamond coating (1). Power of the EZS-1 device is 0.25 kW, rotation speed is 2800 min, -

Other electric motors can be used for stone processing in the power range from 0.25 to 0.5 kW and rotation speed from 15C0 to 3000 min. - Box 12 with a hinged lid serves as a stand for the machine. The machine is attached to the cover with bolts. The hinged cover allows the machine to be placed in an inclined position for some operations.

On the chuck side, an extension table 11 is attached to the box. Its height is adjustable so that you can work with cutting wheels of various diameters.

On the side table there is a guide bar 9, made of a duralumin corner 25X25 mm. A protective guard 7 for the cutting wheel is installed on the side. There is a middle line along the table and the protective fence, which helps to orient the stone when cutting.

To soundproof the machine, the bottom of the stand box and the supports of the side table are covered with rubber or felt.

A tray of water is placed under the machine's side table to cool the cutting wheel. To reduce friction, you can add a soap solution to the water. The second water pan is installed under the faceplate.

When cutting, the stone is fed along a guide bar, the position of which is adjusted to the thickness of the stone plate that is about to be cut. The stone is fed towards the rotation of the cutting wheel. Water for cooling the wheel can also be supplied using a moistened piece of foam rubber, which is held with the left hand at the side of the cutting wheel. The stone is passed with the right hand.

It is better to hold large stones with both hands, and press the foam rubber together with the stone against the tool. For stability, the edge of the stone is first cut off to obtain a supporting platform (Fig. 9). Or you can install the stone in a specially prepared cardboard box, fill it with cement and, after complete hardening, cut the stone together with the cement stand. After cutting, the cement is carefully removed. The diameter of the cutting tool is limited by the size of the stone being cut. To cut a larger stone, it is scored as shown in Figure 10, and three wedges of thin steel plates are driven into the cut grooves. The stone is broken by carefully striking it with wedges. In this way, you can cut stones whose size is slightly larger than the diameter of the cutting tool.

If it is necessary to cut a cracked stone, then it is glued before cutting. epoxy glue. Cracks are outlined on a wet surface with a pencil, so they are better visible. Before gluing, the stone must be dried so that no water remains in the cracks. To do this, it is heated over an electric stove, and then cooled to approximately 60 ° C. Epoxy glue is applied to the hot stone with a brush or stick along the marked cracks, so it penetrates deeper and hardens faster. After this operation the stone becomes

strong enough that it can be cut into thin slices without fear.

GRINDING

The cut surface must be carefully polished so that the beauty of the stone appears more clearly.

Grinding can be done on the same machine described in the Splitting and Cutting section. For convenience, the cover of the machine stand is placed at an angle of about 15 degrees (Fig. 11).

It is best to use diamond faceplates for grinding, but you can also use regular abrasive wheels and so-called rubber ones.

Rubber abrasive wheels are good because you can make grooves in them and grind round stones. In addition, they are safe to use. Conventional abrasive wheels produce a lot of dirt due to the fact that they wear out quickly; there are cases when they fly into pieces during operation. Therefore, for safety reasons, a dense steel casing must be placed over them. An old aluminum bowl with the bottom removed can be used as a casing (Fig. 11). Grinding begins on wheels with large diamond or abrasive grains from 300 to 60 microns, the second stage of grinding is carried out on wheels with grains from 60 to 40 microns, and the last stage - on wheels with grains from 40 to 10 microns.

When grinding, a continuous supply of water is required. You can, as when cutting, use a piece of damp foam rubber. But it is better to install a tank with a rubber hose and a tap above the machine, through which water will flow drop by drop to the faceplate and then flow through another tube into the pan, as shown in Figure 11. The same metal casing-bowl is used to protect against splashing water.

POLISHING

The main tools for this final operation in stone processing are laps, polishing wheels made of felt and cloth, and brushes - hair or from plant materials (for example, jute).

Laps are the most important tool for finishing the surface of a stone. They are made in the form of faceplates and are manual. The lapping material for stone processing is different. It can be cast iron, tin, lead, wood, fluoroplastic, hematite, chalcedony.

The laps themselves, as a rule, perform fine grinding, and moistened chromium oxide or GOI paste is added for polishing. Instead of chromium oxide, you can use green paint under the same name, since chromium oxide is its main component. You can polish it using a leather swab. The disadvantage of chromium oxide and GOI paste is that they eat into the cracks of the stone and are washed out with difficulty, using gasoline. Aluminum oxide powders are also used for polishing.

Natural stone processing

Since most stones are mined in the form of a shapeless massive rock, they need processing, which will make it possible for their further use in a particular area. The exception is rocks that have natural decorative value (boulder, pebbles, coral, pearls, etc.). Various textured processing of natural stone gives it an aesthetic appearance, helps to identify and emphasize decorative properties, or hide imperfections.

Modern technologies for processing natural stone

Mechanized stone-cutting production makes it possible to process any rock and give its surface the required texture after mining and sawing. There are the following technologies for processing natural stone to obtain the desired surface texture. Some of them can be found below.

Sawn surface - obtained by cutting the workpiece. For this purpose, machines with linear movement of the saw frame, band, rope and circular saws are used. The surface becomes rough with intermittent grooves up to 5 mm deep.

Surfaces with this texture are used for paving areas, garden paths, cladding plinths and walls. In addition, these products are used as a material for subsequent, finer processing - polishing, grinding, glazing.

Grinded surface - is formed as a result of processing the workpiece with grinding wheels, on portal and bridge type machines, grinding and polishing conveyors and grinding and polishing machines for volumetric products. The surface acquires a uniform roughness, with relief irregularities up to 0.5 mm high. This technology is applicable for light-colored breeds with an undefined pattern. It is not suitable for dark, especially patterned rocks, as it significantly hides the pattern and color.

Such products are used for finishing floors, platforms, steps of stairs and places where it is necessary to reduce slipping.

Polished texture - achieved by using special grinding wheels coated with micro-grinding powders. The surface is smooth, but has no mirror shine. Polishing opens up the design well, highlighting the structure of the stone.

The slabs obtained in this way are used for cladding the floor plane and external walls of buildings.

Polished - achieved by subsequent grinding of the polished surface on a conveyor with powder-coated wheels, and then with felt and fabric wheels. The use of Goi paste or tin nitrate gives the polished stone a special shine.

Polishing perfectly reveals the pattern of the stone and emphasizes the color.

This material is used for interior decoration, the production of window sills, countertops and other interior elements.

Conchoidal - has uniform depressions from 1 to 4 mm deep, giving the stone a special decorative appearance.

Slabs with this texture are used for exterior decoration of buildings and for interior design.

Melted - obtained as a result of the use of thermal technology for processing stone on a thermal gas-jet machine. It reveals texture and color well, while creating the impression that the stone is slightly melted.

Products after heat treatment are used for finishing building facades, staircases and landings.

Rocky surface texture - is an imitation of roughly processed rock with the presence of depressions and protrusions from 50 to 200 mm, located in a chaotic manner and not undergone additional processing. The effect is achieved by chipping rock from a previously weakened surface.

A material with such a texture is used for finishing the facades of large buildings, emphasizing their significance and monumentality, as well as their natural connection with the surrounding landscape.

Common methods of processing natural stone

Modern methods of processing natural stone are divided into 2 types: mechanical and physical-mechanical.

Mechanical methods include the most common methods to date such as chipping, impact destruction and cutting.

When chipping, the following is achieved: the texture of a flat and relief rock, lumpy, characterized on the front surface by the presence of evenly distributed depressions and bumps; texture and texture is relief, with the presence of parallel grooves with a height of 0.5 to 3 mm.

Cutting is the most common modern methods stone processing. It is carried out using the disk, rope or strip cutting method.

Strip sawing is divided into sawing using steel and cast iron shot and diamond-strip sawing.

Disc sawing is becoming increasingly widespread in the processing of rocks of any hardness and is divided into disc and diamond disc sawing with cutters.

Rope sawing has become widespread in rock cutting various densities. Its development is going in 3 directions: wire sawing using abrasives, diamond wire sawing and sawing with ropes reinforced with carbide washers.

Impact destruction of stone is most widely used in the production of hewn products. Most often, steps, monument bases, bridge abutments and other elements are made in this way, where a dotted texture of processing is achieved.

The method of ultrasonic decorative processing of stone in an abrasive environment is beginning to occupy a worthy place in the industry. The process is very slow, but characterized by very high accuracy.

Physical-mechanical methods include treatment with high-frequency currents and the widely used method of processing stone with thermosetting gas burners of kerosene-oxygen and gasoline-air types, which is used for the production of architectural and construction parts and the manufacture of monuments from high-strength rocks.

The high-frequency current method is most suitable for processing blank blocks in the production of curbs, parapets, steps, etc. This method, when using high-frequency oscillations up to 20 MHz, is considered the most accurate and promising.

Processing natural stone at home

According to the degree of difficulty, all stones are divided into soft and hard. Soft stones can be easily processed with the same tools as metal products, while hard stones require the use of special tools. Stone processing at home requires a separate room equipped with exhaust ventilation, since work such as cutting and grinding is accompanied by a large amount of stone dust, which is very harmful to health.

At home, to process natural stone, you can carry out such work as: cutting, grinding, polishing the stone and engraving. It is important to remember that cutting, grinding and polishing stone is carried out only with a continuous supply of water. Water cools the cutting element, removes sludge generated during operation and significantly reduces the level of stone dust.

Cutting - rough is carried out using a regular grinder and a stone disc. A more accurate one will require the use of a sawmill type machine with a metal, preferably movable, platform.

Grinding is carried out using a grinding machine (manual or stationary) or an angle grinder with appropriate grinding wheels. The simplest method of grinding, but only for stones up to 20-25 cm in length: pour abrasive powder onto a cast-iron plate and fill it with water, place the stone on top and rub until it reaches the desired surface. The fine-grained structure of cast iron facilitates stone processing.

Gazebo made of natural or artificial stone

I left two planes of natural origin untouched, I like it better this way.
The most important component in stone processing is abrasives. I have been using sanding tape for a long time, the markings are in the photo below. This sandpaper can be used to process glass and hard minerals - chalcedony, jasper, quartz...

For the work I used a small piece of sandpaper measuring 10*9.5 cm.

You will also need a small, hard, flat surface. A hand plane blade or a metal plate of suitable size will do. It is important that it does not bend, size 3.3*50*160 mm.

It remains to talk about the container with water, I use a photo bath, size 4.5*17*22 cm.
Water is necessary when working with jet to prevent dust from spreading around the work area. Coal dust is harmful to health and is very difficult to remove from surfaces. Water also helps remove sludge from abrasive and stone surfaces. During intensive grinding, it cools materials.

Let's get to work. Pour water into the container, no more than half, so as not to splash. Place the plate in the container at an angle and secure the sandpaper. With your free hand, begin to grind the surfaces of the stone, dipping the mineral a little into the water to wet the surfaces of the workpiece and the abrasive.