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Carving vermiculite

Posted: Wed May 02, 2018 7:12 pm
by mikefromitaly
Hi guys
anybody of you use to carve Vermiculute boards by hand or cnc router to make molds?

I would appeciete any reply
Thank you.

Re: Carving vermiculite

Posted: Fri May 04, 2018 3:08 pm
by Ed Cantarella
Mike, I use what are known as "ribbon tools" for carving vermiculite board and I also use them a lot on clay. On clay they are nice as they remove clay, not just push it from one place to another like solid tools would do.
Like these.
30372-1006-1-2ww-m.jpg
30372-1006-1-2ww-m.jpg (60.25 KiB) Viewed 15916 times
You can use any router bits that are commonly used on wood on vermiculite board. It will make one heck of a mess.

I would suggest you make some by hand, get used to cooking out the binders, applying kiln wash and seeing how you like them before going crazy with the CNC router. After the kiln wash has been fired once they generally cast much cleaner if they have some mica rubbed into the pores of the mold.