Pheasant carved in Limestone

[Rcnewcomb]

The South Dakota state bird is the pheasant so I've had some demand. This project is part of a fireplace surround. There will be pheasants on either side of the fireplace.

This is cut in a 12x15" piece of limestone. I used a 1/2" V90 at 13K and 2ips for v carving. I used Vcarve wizard and limited the flat depth to 1/32". I used a 1/4" onsrud straight cutter for area clearing, again at 13K and 2ips.

I used a high velocity nozzle on a shop vac to provide air cooling during the cutting.

[Rcnewcomb]

11x21" white oak. 1/2" V60 @ 13K and 4ips on a Shopbot PRT Alpha. No area clearance was used.

[dighsx]

How do the bits hold up when cutting limestone? I've thought about trying cutting some but have always chickened out. Is there any trick to it? Or just go slow and keep things cool?

[Rcnewcomb]

Limestone is fairly soft and you will notice that I'm only going down 1/32". The 1/2" V90 was a sears craftsman bit -- not a terribly good or expensive bit.

I have decided to keep seperate bits for wood and stone, but my bits that are too dull for wood are OK for stone.

I know others have sprayed a bit of water on the surface before cutting, but the shop vac seems to keep things cool enough at 13K RPM and 2ips feedrate.

[richard]

nice very nice would you be willing to share the file?

[richard]

nice very nice would you be willing to share the file?

[Rcnewcomb]

The file can be found on page 129, image 16 from volume 1 of the Vector Art Mega Collection.

You can buy just the single image from VectorArt (Image Number: 33581) for $2.00
http://www.vectorart.com/store/index.cf ... ds_129.htm

[richard]

thank you nice resonable site