Marble Hand Sculpture

This instructable is made because I have a bunch of scrap marble pieces left from my house construction and also happens because in my last marble and stainless-steel lamps build I only able to build only three lamps and I required 4 of them for my four pillars and this hand lamps is going to full fill that needs. The work is absolutely difficult to lead as the stone is hard material especially when you use granite as your material. I would say most of the carving builds are mostly depend upon the person's vision and everybody uses his own way to make the work easier and in this build, I just simply took reference of my hand and a little bit of imagination and a whole lot of material removal. I think I am a bit new in this line because I mainly do fabrication kind of work but I think it's looking ok. So I am going to share with you some steps which I used and hopefully it helped you in making A marble hand like this. If you have tips then don't forget to share them as I am a complete newbie to this.

Material and tools used.

For the material following are the things that have been used.

1. Scrap marble pieces

2. ½" thick acrylic pieces

3. RGB Led bulb

4. Wire for connections

5. Bulb holder

6. Epoxy for gluing marble pieces together

Tools used

1. Angel grinder

2. Marble cutter

3. Diamond blade

4. Core drill

5. Orbital sander

6. Dremel

7. Diamond burrs

8. Diamond polishing pads

Since I am making a 1-1 ratio of my hand so I have reference pretty much ready on the spot. The material I am using is marble and granite flat pieces so the first thing I did is measured the length of my forearm and then according to that, I cut down the pieces because I am going to stack them one over the other to make the forearm area. Since I wanted to use this as a lamp so onto the wrist area I decided to use some acrylic pieces. To cut down those pieces I use a cutting blade as a reference and then draw the outline. Once the outline has been drawn out with the help of a marble cutting saw I roughly chop them into manageable pieces. At first, I was using an angle grinder but later on chose the marble cutting saw because it gives perpendicular cuts.

Once the rough cut has been made I switch the tool and attach a diamond grinding wheel to the angle grinder and start following those circles which I traced earlier. Although in the end, our object isn't round in shape but this will allow us to have a good reference. Later on, with the help of a blade, I took the center mark and drill the hole with a hole saw. This hole actually going to be used to feed the wire inside the wrist area. For the wrist area, I used acrylic pieces and glued them together because they are triangular in shape. I cut the circular shape onto the scroll saw and then they are ready for the gluing process but I glued it temporarily because later on, we need to put lighting stuff inside it. One thing that is absolutely important is that you need to use water to cool down your tools when you are using diamond tools for longer life.

Once the pieces have come to the final size and holes have been drilled I glued the pieces together with two-part epoxy and making sure that the glue didn't trap inside the wire hole. At first, I stack them by making a batch of 3 or 4 so that they didn't slip over one another if I put a bunch of them over one another. Once the epoxy is dried they are ready for the carving process.

To do the rough carving I made a paper modal but later on, I found that it's not worthy enough. To start the carving I first draw the basic layout onto the stone and then step by step started grinding out them. During this period I also took reference from my hand because that's a live example of that how this needs to look like. The process is a lot messy and dusty so always make sure to wear proper protection on your face to avoid dust. The process took some time and if I would say in a nutshell then you just need to taper down the hand up to the wrist area. It would be good if you use an outside caliper and constantly checking the dimensions with which you are taking your reference. Once it's done I move onto the wrist area.

Once the forearm has been roughly carved I started the work onto the wrist area. The construction is almost the same as the forearm. I cut down the pieces a tiny bit bigger than my palm and stack them together. Along with that I also cut down some pieces to make fingers. These pieces are needed to be of different sizes and it's good to keep these pieces pretty much close to the final dimensions because once it's done you didn't have enough space left to remove the excess material.

Once the cutting work has been finished I clean all the pieces and then glued them together. The plan portion is glued separately while each finger has been glued separately. It would be good to rough down the surface of the stones to have a better bonding. Once the glue dried I start the carving process of the palm area.

After the glue dried I start the carving process. I did it first because there are so many areas around the fingers that need to be curved down and if I glued the finger first then it would be difficult to remove the material later in the process. During the grinding process, I constantly taking the reference from my palm to stay on the right track. Once it comes to the final dimensions I started carving down the fingers also. I use my vise to hold them to their place during the grinding process. Once everything comes to the more rough organic shape I start the gluing process of the fingers. The glue was viscous enough to hold the fingers to their place until they dried completely.

Once all the pieces are joined together now is the time to bring the entire piece into a more organic shape. With the same grinding wheel, I bring curves and contour over the area where they actually required. Basically, I was just tracing my hand onto a piece of stone. The thumb area lacks the web area so I mixed two-part putty which hardens after few minutes around the thumb area and brings the piece to a more organic shape. Then I draw small details and follow those lines with dremel and grinding disk. There are so many areas where the wheel couldn't go but in those areas, diamond bits are very handy. I also did some details onto the nails by carving some areas and then fill them with putty which mimics how the nail actually looks.

For the polishing process, I use an orbital sander with a diamond sanding pad which is absolutely ideal for materials like stone. I have different grit sizes all the way up to 3000 grits. One by one, I use all of them to remove the scratches from the hand and make it look a lot shinier. In the smaller area, I use hand sanding with sandpaper.

Once the finishing is completed I start the work on fixing the bulb inside the wrist. For that I use 40mm core drill and use it to make a cavity inside the wrist and the forearm area so that I am able to insert the bulb with a holder inside this. To remove the bulkiness of the bulb I remove the top dome and then grind the plastic a little bit to flush it down into the hand. Then I insert the wire and the bulb and fix it with the help of hot glue and glued the wrist with epoxy.

Here are some shots of the final look. I think there is a lot more need to learn me to become a better carver, but this is my 3rd stone-carved project. The first two have a very basic shape, there wasn't much work to do but in this one, I definitely faced a lot more challenges. But glad everything went well. If you have thoughts to share then feel free to do. I see you in the next one.