Grinding sticks

​In an earlier blog I wrote about using waterstone grinding sticks to shape my pieces of work.
 
In that article I wrote about using them wet, and creating a slurry.  This helps to grind down both the stone and the stick and creates smooth compound- and transition-curves in the least possible time.
 
But on a recent workpiece, a remembrance poppy, I needed to highlight only the raised detail of the faces and wanted to leave the concave areas unpolished, though not rough.

​Figure 1 shows the lower part of one of the poppy petals after being ground with 1000 grit sticks.  You can see only the highest parts have been ground down, leaving the lower parts with a satin finish.  The highlights of the upper part have also been polished with the 8000 stick - see below for the final effect.

So, once the petals were formed by using first a large grinding wheel, then a small one, I used small sticks (~3 mm square) to gently grind down the whole piece at 600, 1000 and then used a large stick of 8000 on the raised areas.  This left the depressions with a silvery-white satiny patina in the concave areas, and the ridges with a semi-polished finish.  Perfect!

Figure 2 shows the silvery-white satiny finish, representing the satiny texture of the petals themselves, which was exactly what I was trying to achieve.

​So always be on the lookout for how to produce a different finish, or using your tools in a different way – it can pay dividends!
 
There are additional pictures of the poppy in the Recent Work section.