Logs and Onyx

This past weekend was a 4-day weekend for us. I had Monday off and we decided to drive to Viroqua to check out the stone product manufacturer. I was looking for breakage and/or scrap...

They did not have much - it appears that the crush any breakage or scrap on a regular basis and they don't invite people to collect it. I guess it is a liability issue - no dumpster diving for stone scraps...

Although I was a bit disappointed about this, Abelisto and I went ahead and walked through their stone yard... There was some amazing granite there. I was looking for marble. Granite is a bit too hard for my tools so I wasn't interested in it, plus there wasn't any that I would call scrap anyway. I could have gotten some of the leftover pieces for $10/sq.ft., which did not seem such a bad price, but the smallest piece of leftover stone would have been around 6 sq.ft. I did not want to spend that much on a single piece - a single color.

After strolling through their leftover side of the yard, we went - just for fun - to the other side to see the really huge slices of stone. Some of them were probably 10' x 8'. All of them were very nice, some were absolutely breath-taking (especially this one brown granite with veins of deep red and black and lots of pyrite in it). At the very back of this side of the yard I found an onyx slab that had cracked and broken into one two pieces. One piece was marked 18" x 16" (but it's actually bigger than that - I think the numbers represent the largest rectangle that could be cut from the piece).

I went back in the showroom and talked them into selling me the smaller piece. I would have bought all of it, but I don't know if onyx works well in mosaics... I'll have to ask Sophie.

If it does, I'm definitely making another trip to get the rest of the onyx. You can see why:

I also located a suitable log for making my hardie blocks. Emerald, Robert and I picked it up and put in in the back of the Vibe... it's long enough to cut into two hardie blocks so that I can have a separate block for the stone (steel) cutting hardie and the glass (carbide-tipped) cutting hardie.

Needless to say, I did not cut it to length with that handsaw... wishful thinking there. I don't have a chainsaw, so I used the Saws-all... and only got 3/4 the way through the first cut. Robert had to finish that cut. And for some reason even he could not make the Saws-all work for the second cut... we're trying to find a chainsaw to borrow. Once the blocks are cut correctly, they will need to dry out somewhat. This log was cut during the winter, so it doesn't have as much moisture in it as it would if it were cut right now, but the blocks still have plenty of drying to do before I drill the holes for the hardies.

Right now, Finn thinks the log sections are giant scratching posts for him.