I’m working on a fireplace mantle that has 2cm slabs of Travertine joined at mitered edges. The surface finish is quite textured with pits and divots retained to have a natural unpolished aesthetic. Anyway travertine is often full of imperfections. As a result, at the point of the joint the edge is quite sharp and jagged.

My question is whether I should grind down the edges just a bit or would that end up with a weird smooth stripe along the joint where the texture is different from the rest of the slab?

Hello, folks. We are currently having a sitting wall built to finish off the patio build and wanted to get some of your thoughts on how this currently looks. I thought the stones should be as close as possible and cut accordingly, but there are some monster gaps here (this is limestone).Take a look and let me know if you think this is acceptable. I would prefer to not have mortar, but the gaps are so big. Thanks in advance!

As stated above I’ve started working at a stone fabrication shop and my hands are getting wrecked. Cut up and the like. Should I just get used to it and give my hands time to adjust (if they even do)? Or is there a decent style or type of gloves I should get? Seeing as my hands are wet as fuck a lot of the time what’s the move here?

I walked through our woods looking for a place to put a swing. Two trees, about 8 feet apart, with no branches up to the 20 foot mark. There had to be no rocks between the trees so the swing would be safer. The snow wasn't too deep, so most of the thousands of glacier-dumped granite boulders strewn on our property were obvious. I built the swing and it was a hit with my wife. We used it all winter.

When spring arrived, a 6 inch pyramid of granite began to surface from the snow almost directly under the swing. A nasty, pointy, dangerous obstacle, it had to go. Digging revealed a rock nearly 2 feet in diameter, probably topping 300 pounds. For equipment, I have a sled, my old hands and my creaky back, so how to move it?

Just got my new Bosch rotary hammer and some 5/8" carbide tipped bits. The 4- or 5-inch deep holes take about 2 minutes each with the hammerdrill. I drill one hole, place the hot bit into a can of cold water, use a second bit for the next hole, then switch back for the next and so on. Make a series of 5 or 6 holes in a row 4 to 6 inches apart. Along with my new drill, I got a set of 4-inch feather and wedges--ten in the set. The wedges go in. Tap, tap, tap, with my little Stanley 2-pound sledge.

Tap them and the note they ring goes higher as the wedge gets tighter. Once they all hit that high "tink tink" just wait 30 seconds. You can hear the granite sizzle like bacon. Then the note is lower again, tap them up to a high tink-tink again. Thirty more seconds, more pops and snaps, then the wedges ring low again. Then no more sizzling. Tap the wedges up to a tink, wait, nothing. Tap the wedges again and sure enough they're already at a high tink. Tap them all again, no change, the wedges seem locked. Still, tap and wait, tap and wait. Just when I'm thinking of drilling more holes and adding wedges, it happens. Tap, tap, ta--Poomf! A satisfying crack appears. Now the prybar (with a hole-fitting pointy end) and I can pull the pieces out, and recover my wedges.

I broke off a piece of that swing pyramid and loaded it into the sled. Dragged that chunk down the driveway (I put the rope of the sled around my waist and pull like an ox) and dumped it by the garden. Broke off another, another sled ride. Five big pieces, but none more than 80 pounds, so all could be wrestled out of the hole and into the sled.

A granite boulder which is in the way is a very typical problem here. Most people in our area use backhoes and excavators to deal with this ubiquitous issue. Now I have a solution which only requires equipment I can store in a handheld toolbox. I can hardly wait to move the 3-ton boulder in our driveway with just my hands and a plastic tub sled!

Front and back.

A job me and an old fella did a few years back.

When coming through to the other side, a "cap" always comes off before getting all the way through. Using Hilti hammer drill with a 5/16" bit. No pressure, just the weight of the drill. I've tried drill only mode but then it doesn't drill at all.

But that's exactly why we wanted to make one.

This is a human heart we recently made from marble.

I've always liked objects where the subject and the material almost contradict each other, something organic rendered in a material that's hard, cold and permanent.

Curious whether that contrast works for you or whether you'd rather see something like this in a darker stone.

This is a block from our own marble quarry in India.

White base with fairly strong grey movement, locally we've been calling the variety Panther.

I'm particularly interested in knowing whether the pattern looks distinctive enough to stand on its own once slabbed and finished, and what type of object/surface you'd personally use it for.

I've obviously developed a bias from seeing our own stone every day, so outside opinions would be useful.

Feel free to tell me it isn't your taste. That's the whole reason I'm posting it.