Stone masonry at the space

#1

Hi everyone. I’ve got a lovely friend who’s training as a heritage stonemason, and she was wondering if there would be a place she could practice carving lettering?

Obviously we have the extraction system in the woodworking area but I wasn’t sure if it would be suitable? Unlike the larger form sculpting, I understand lettering to be on small pieces of stone, and relatively low-dust and low-noise.

Thanks in advance!

#2

Hiya!

It’s possible but, we would need a Risk Assessment to understand better what safety measures we would need. Can you point us at an existing one?

Thanks!
Andy

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#3

We should be quite careful, my understanding (as a total layman) is that chiselling stone can release Silica dust, which can cause damage similar to working with Asbestos. Now some small scale stone masonry is probably not going to cause issues, but it will impact the risk assessment. More info for that risk assement:

https://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/healthrisks/cancer-and-construction/silica-dust.htm

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#4

This is similar to the Ceramics area, if you sand ceramics - bad times.

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#5

Thanks for your replies! She’s just doing night classes until September, but I’ll ask her if she could get the risk assessment from her college and will come back to you.

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#6

My understanding from @joeatkin2 is that stone cutting, carving etc. should not be done in the space. Stone dust kills machines, so shouldn’t be near woodwork, metalwork, laser and CNC, 3d printers, sewing machines etc.

Doing that outside is always a possibility. It would be great if we could have a covered area a bit like Koi have for doing things like that.

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#7

It’s the same risk as in ceramics and the risk assessment of the ceramics regarding dust could probably be used as guidance. We do not allow any dry sanding in the ceramics due to this. But I have no experience with masonary so a riskasessment from the college will definitely help.

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