This giant block of granite is starting out at 13,700lbs! Because we’ve put this project together on a relatively slim budget, the block is a rough cut direct from the quarry, which means the dimensions are slightly off from where I want them. That means that one of the first things I do will be to try and split off a 2000lb chunk of stone from one end of the block.
Why get a block from the quarry? Fractures. There are plenty of granite boulders around. These are called “glacial erratics”. It might have been easier to use a boulder. The shape would already be round, so I could’ve gotten the dimension I want and it would weigh less, plus I’d have less material to remove. Another option was to go smaller - it would have been far easier to find and carve a boulder that was only 30 inches diameter instead of 48. But, that wouldn’t quite have the same impact. I was really set on 4ft tall and 4ft diameter, because that’s about the size of the world record pumpkins. And again, there were those fractures to worry about. Boulders have been tumbled over hundreds of miles, bashed around and assaulted by the weather for thousands of years. One might turn out to be solid on the inside, but with the amount of time and energy I plan to expend on this project, I didn’t want to take that kind of a chance - this isn’t the sort of thing you can easily start over from scratch if you run into a ‘quality’ problem. Also, the dimensionality of a block makes it easier to have a consistent form, which in this case is desirable. A quarried block is the better choice for this project.