Button-making preparations

Richard had a hunk of soapstone, a nice greenish, dense stone, but it needed to be cut down into useable chunks. So Robert the Artificer to the rescue. We tried several different methods before settling in on the metal-cutting band saw. The size and shape of the block, plus the configuration o the tool required a table extension to position the stone correctly. To kleptocracy the work stable the cuts were not made all the way through the rock at first, but several were made then finished off in subsequent passes, to finally provide the uniform slabs you see here.