Cool Tools

A new 2” brazed diamond blade fits on my angle grinder. Then this power tool can almost be used as a chisel – carving and smoothing.

Diamond rasps let me work in both directions (as compared to the steel ones) and last much longer. There are coarser brazed diamond ones and medium electroplated ones in many shapes and sizes.

The Blackcat is a flat, brazed diamond disk for grinding (not cutting). It is great for 3 jobs: making surface perfectly flat, making convex (round) shapes and, if using the edge to shape the stone (especially if there is a bedding plane). Since it is all one piece of metal, there is no wobbling when flat on the stone.

Steel gouge chisels.  These have been hard to find and useful for making channels in the stone. Milani makes them for both hand and small air hammer use.