The Tools Used In The Making Of Slate Homeware
The Tools Used In The Making Of Slate Homeware
When you purchase a slate clock or a slate mirror or a piece of art on slate and you think it's really fabulous and unique, think again about what goes into each piece. As all our slate homeware is made using recycled slate coming from the roofs of Irish buildings, we need a fair amount of tools to transform the slate tile into a unique, handcrafted piece of art - no mean feat.
Firstly but not most importantly, we use hand held angle grinders to carve out lines and curves in our slate piece. We also have big grinders for cutting out the overall piece but the finer work is done with the hand held angle grinder.
Before those lines and curves are etched out, they have to be marked out. Sometimes a compass is used for this or a template or simply free form. (Mauricio is a genius!) If the desired look is that raw edge then Mauricio will not be using the angle grinder. He'll be using a slate cutter (guillotine) instead.
Alot of chiselling goes on here at Heartworks. I'd nearly say that the chisel is Mauricio's favourite tool. If he wants to get contours on the slate piece, he chisels it out and as slate is quite brittle its comes off either big or small. This is where Mauricio's further genius comes in. Just the right amount of pressure needs to be applied to the hammer, either a weak tap or a strong tap, depending on how big you want that contour.
When all these processes are gone through, it's time to power wash the slate with the power washers (waterproof apron on!) and then it comes inside for colouring. If it's a mirror it gets mirror put on on the back. If its a clock, well a clock needs hands and a mechanism, doesn't it. All this is for another day when I'll explain all these processes where the beautiful piece emanates through Mauricio's artistic touch .
