[Regia-NA] Re: source for soapstone materials

[rmhowe]

Joy Cain wrote:
> http://www.dickblick.com has soapstone and other toys for artists.

Okay, here is a really appropos solution.
Go to the dog and cat supply store and buy a cattle
femur. Cut the ball of the bone in half.
Drill a hole through the bone if the tendon
hole doesn't exactly line up. Carve to taste.
Speaking of which, some of it is deliberately flavored.
Some is sanitized inside and out.
Too sanitized and baked and you get
back to calcium and less like bone. I've seen some
baked so hard it flakes. Last time I went looking
was this week. The more natural it looks the better.

According to my reading (Viking Shetland I think or
possibly Current Archaeology) at least as many as 15
cattle bone whorls have been found at one site and
apparently they are so common they are rarely exhibited.
It is dense enough to be carvable, however the rest of
the big bone isn't thick enough for anything but bone
inlay. I usually use metacarpals and metacarsals - the
lower legs for spoons and dress pins.
The bowl of the spoon goes just short of the hole in
the flat side, look for one with a depression because
the bone at that spot is naturally quite thin and
thickens towards the handle end.

One of my 7 genuine spindle whorls is bone and much smaller
than a cattle femur ball. As small as it is I wonder what
fine fiber it was used for?

But if you must have soapstone do not buy the stuff
from Virginia. Has many inclusions and is very coarse.
A lot of soapstones also contain asbestos. I have some
of the VA soapstone and it is poor quality compared to
other stuff I have bought.

However, as some people must try anything and might
want it for lamps (I have been told it is not particularly
safe for casting):
New World Stone Company
42 Alberene Loop
Schuyler, Virginia 22969   Tel. 434.831.1051 Fax. 434.831.3432 
nwsc at ric.net
(from their web page at  http://www.newworldstone.com/)
This reference is several years old.
The pewter casters in Atlantia are not particularly fond
of it and use wonderstone instead.

For sources try:

Jerry's Artarama - Old Wake Forest Rd.
(they moved their headquarters here from Greenville last year)
Jerry’s Artarama of NC, Inc.
3060 Wake Forest Rd.
Raleigh, 27609     (919) 876-6610    6/04
Store Hours:
Mon.-Thurs. 10 am-7 pm, Friday 10am-8pm, Saturday 10am-7pm, Sunday 
noon-6 pm.
Other stores in Knoxville, TN; West Orange, NJ; Bellerose, NY; West Palm 
Beach, FL; Deerfield Beach, FL; West Hartford, Ct;  Fort Collins, CO; 
Norwalk, CT; Providence, RI. 6/04
Jerry's has carving soapstone in chunks and tools for working it and 
regular stone.

TCS (The Compleat Sculptor) http://www.sculpt.com/
90 Vandam Street
New York City, NY
     When I ordered from them they doubled my order, and the size of the 
custom cutting was also doubled. Instead of  $250 - they put nearly $500 
on my credit card. I shipped half back to them, and got credit for the 
stone, although it appeared I never did recoup the original extra 
shipping cost. Might I suggest caution when ordering and paying and
avoiding the hassle? Someone, maybe several someones, has a blown
lightbulb there. I spoke with several of them. At least two got it
wrong, possibly three.
     Incidentally, the employees there I spoke to knew nothing at all 
about most soapstones containing asbestos. When I spoke to the owner I 
got a very nebulous answer. Apparently he did not have MSDS sheets on it 
either. They cut it dry, in a basement without any dust protection on
a large carbide bladed tablesaw, or did when I talked to them four
or so years ago.

The best one to have is Montana White which is simply massive
talc. It has no asbestos.

An SCA person who deals in soapstone from Montana he feels is the best 
he's seen is F K Farner <ffarner at efn.org>, or it was a while
back. You might check the An Tir kingdom email list for a new address.
I think Montana is in An Tir - I could be wrong. With seventeen or
eighteen SCA kingdoms it gets a bit confusing.

 From what Pat Reed, a geologist, told me the Montana Talc white 
(soapstone) does not contain any asbestos. "The Montana soapstone (pure 
white) is a re-metamorphosized marble (calcium carbonate)."  Pat's email 
address has bounced and I don't have her current one. She lives around
the Seattle, Washington area. That is An Tir, so is part of Canada.

The better regular Soapstone apparently comes from:
Steatite of Southern Oregon
John or Bev Pugh
2891 Elk Lane
Grants Pass, Oregon  97527
1-503-479-3646 The area code may have changed. an alternate phone:
1 (541) 479-3646  These folks have an excellent reputation.

Someone who usually sets up near the fence north of the barn at
Pennsic sells soapstone cut into one inch thick slabs. I've
bought some from him. Better than the Virginia stuff.

Some people buy their soapstone in pizza platters from places like 
Walmart. Not thick, but already smooth.

Piggåsen soapstone quarry was used before, during and after the Viking Age.
http://viking.no/e/info-sheets/norway/e-piggasen.html 7/02

..........
http://www.geocities.com/ravensteadhousehold/rsnorsefood.htm  7/02
House Ravenstead’s page on soapstone and cooking Norse foods.
,,,,,,,,,,,
http://www.stonetrade.com/other_soapstones.htm
Soapstone from Stonetrade.com
Stone International, Inc.  The Stone Company
333 Main Street, East Greenwich, Rhode Island 02818 USA
Phone: 401-885-6608 Fax: 401-885-3875
email: info at stonetrade.com
Soapstone Slabs & Tiles
Thicknesses:
1 1/4”, 3/4”, 2 1/2”
Standard Sizes:
72” x 30”, 48” x 30”
Calibrated and honed.
  Tiles:  1/2” thick, 12”x 12”, 16” x 16”
...........
http://www.dmimpex.fi/ku.htm  7/02
Karelia Ultima - Finnish Handmade Soapstone Products for wine, food, 
sauna and decoration.
...........
Green Mountain Soapstone Pizza Stones and Cookware:
http://www.greenmountainsoapstone.com/cookware.html   7/02
...........
One of the first sixteen of the Haithabu (Viking Hedeby) books
is on carving out soapstone bowls (also known as steatite).
I know because I have it myself in our library. Unfortunately
I don't have it in my bibliographies on this computer.
However, I highly recommend not eating from one even if you
do have enough sense to use dust control and clean your clothes
in a machine separate from your family's as you can get lung,
stomach, intestinal, or skin cancer from working the stuff.

Asbestos is any of five minerals which are fibrous, too fine
for your cilia in the body to expel, and capable in some cases
of hooking right into the tissue. Dying from cancer wouldn't
always show up in the archaeological record as it often doesn't
affect the bones that are left. Of course most of those bowls
had rough internal chipping and it might well have contributed
to the shorter average lifespan. Some of them were so highly
prized that broken ones were mended just like tinkers mended
metal pans in later centuries. No one forewarned those people.

Magnus, OL
Great Barony of Windmasters' Hill, Manx, Regia, Great Dark Horde