Thread: Off Topic? Where to buy Soapstone (or similar) for Carving?

Welcome to an unbelievable mess of a good time.

There are supposedly steatite soapstone mines all across Canada. Try and fine one to buy from.
Quite by accident in conversation, a professional carver gave me the name of a business which sold soapstone.
All of it from Brazil, no less. And a company name with nothing at all to do with stone of any kind.
It's good stuff, no bands of pyrite across it that I've hit in 20kg of stone.
I'm very much a beginner in stone, nice change from wood.

So, all I can suggest is to search out Australian stone carvers, beginning with your state and major cities.
Do you see much local for sale in galleries or for the tourist trade? Find those people.

You might find power carvers with diamond blades and air hammers. . . . .
Even those people might know of stone dealers like gravestones, counter tops.

I was given some soapstone as a present and it's pretty easy and fun to carve, if you look on Ebay you will probably find some unfinished pieces there.

Thanks for that Robson.

There seems to be unlimited availability of soapstone and other soft-ish stone available in the US, Canada and South America in every size & shape you could want. As usual. Unfortunately, shipping costs would make any import from this market to Australia completely out of the question. As usual.

I will keep researching the local availability and am sure I will eventually find a resource here. Nearly all of the finished pieces I have seen so far have been imported from either India or China. As usual.

Regards - Wayne

Yes, I've had a quick look on eBay Rob. There seems to be the usual mix of imported stuff (India/China) but no one offering raw stone from the quarry. I'll keep searching.

Wayne

Ask businesses that make cemetary headstones. Will never be a shortage of people dying.

Ask businesses that supply stone kitchen countertops. Some here market "soapstone"
but they claim it isn't the same as used for carving (but off-cuts could be a start.)

It's all going to be a PITA. I can't buy Canadian soapstone in Canada.
"Oh, but we have a warehouse 1/2 full of green and brown and gray from Brazil. . . . "
Like the stone will go bad if they leave it outdoors.

What I have seen happening here is that the native Inuit carvers are switching to serpentine stone.
Much harder than soapstone (power carving with a generator and diamond blade stone saws).
Part of the reason is that the northern mines have no roads, even quads are hopeless in the swampy places.
What ever they dig loose, they have to carry by hand!
The other part is that a couple of big name carvers died in mine cave-ins and that spooked everybody else.

Decades ago, I saw an exhibition of student stone carvings. They used livestock salt blocks.

Don’t know if you have checked this site?

https://www.oxlades.com.au/artsupply...-green-sold-kg

Nice catch, Lappa. Would be interesting to know where that stone comes from.

The Brazilian stone I can buy is green, gray or brown, take your pick.

Looked it up =
If I drove 6 hrs east to pick up the stone and buy 25+ kg,
the price is about $4.10/kg and my dollar is about par with yours.

There is plenty of soapstone mined in the Blue Mountains according to NSW Resources, but it is all done at closed mines, the stone is crushed at the mine face and then sent out by a conveyor belt system to be rail transported out for use in cosmetics and baby powder. So little to no chance of getting any local stuff unless you know someone at the mine.

Time to get to know somebody at the mine. Surely they can toss a few 10-20kg lumps aside.
You might offer to make a donation to the Friday afternoon pizza fund.

I wanted local stone scrap from a major slab-cutting operation. So I emailed the company with my request.
In the reply, they said I could have what I could carry and to keep the permission with me!

I did the very same thing at a stone counter-top cutting/polishing business.
They took me to the scrap yard. "Take what you like but don't mess up the piles."

Thanks for that Lappa.

And yes, I found the Oxlades website on line and sent them an enquiry re the supply of soapstone blocks etc last Saturday. No reply as yet. Maybe I will have to give them a call?

Regards - Wayne

Very interesting, bsrlee. This does sound like a good idea, although I have no idea where to start with approaching the mine/s. I'll give it some thought.

Wayne

Your observations are spot on, Robson. The Blue Mountains that bsrlee mention (above) are only about 90 minutes from where I live, so I will do some research to try to locate the mines and contact the mine managers. You never know your luck.

And you are 100% correct with the Canadian dollar conversion rate to the Australian dollar. We returned just 5 days ago from a 2 month trip through British Columbia and the USA. After we had finished our time in BC and were about to start the US leg of our trip we cashed in our remaining Canadian dollars and converted them to American. The conversion rate at the currency exchange was EXACTLY the same as for the Australian dollars - ie; around US$0.65.
While we were in Vancouver we bought a large Serpentine carved statue of a bear by an Inuit artist and had them ship it to Down Under, and which was actually delivered to our home this morning. The shipping and local customs duty cost a bomb, but at least they removed the Canadian GST at the Vancouver end. The piece is fantastic - around 750mm long and weighing in at more than 25 kilos!

Wayne

What a fine idea to make a tour of British Columbia. Can't think of a better idea myself.
More biological and geological diversity than all of the rest of Canada.
I guess you got a little sniff of our worst wildfire season in history.

Stone: transportation is always going to be the killer.
I got lucky with a friend driving past the stone yard 7-8 hr by truck east of here.

In my requests, all I've ever done is just tell the business straight, honest and up front who I am, what I want to do and what I need.
Maybe because a request from a carver is a rare thing??? Everybody has been most helpful.

Go visit those mill people. Carving stone could be a small sideline business?

if you wanted to do small carvings they sell sticks of ss for writing on steel or w.h.y. at bunnings.

cheers,
shawn