How To Carve Stone With A Dremel

Stone carving is a delicate art that anyone can learn using the right approach and set of tools and a Dremel is one of the best tools that you can use to carve stones.

It provides you with great control and can work with a range of different bits and burrs to carve even the most complex designs and patterns on a stone.

Here is a detailed step-by-step guide to help you understand how to carve stone with a Dremel and create attractive decoration pieces.

How To Carve Stone With A Dremel

By WILLPOWER STUDIOS Image license

If you’re planning to carve a stone using a Dremel, follow the following steps carefully to carry out this process efficiently. I also have a guide on for beginners to carve wood patterns with their Dremel.

Supplies You’ll Need

Here’s a list of all the supplies you’ll need to start your stone carving project with a Dremel.

• Stone
• Dremel tool
• Diamond-coated bits of different sizes
• Dust mask or respirator
• Safety goggles
• A pair of leather gloves
• Pencil
• Rubbing Alcohol
• Polishing compound

Step 1: Selecting the Right Stone for Carving

The first step is to gather all the supplies and prepare your workbench. Choose a comfortable area for your workbench so that you can carry out your project without distractions. 

Additionally, make sure that the room you select has plenty of light where you can easily see and carve your stone surface.

You’ll also need to select the right stone for carving and I recommend you go with one of the following:

• Alabaster: If you’re planning to carve a stone for the first time, you should go with alabaster. It has the MOHS hardness level of 1.5 – 2 out of 10, which means it’s a soft and easy-to-carve stone. In addition, it comes in many different colors including cream, gold, white, red, and green. It also has internal patterns sometimes that increase the beauty of your final results.
• Limestone: The hardness level of limestone on the MOHS scale ranges from 2 to 4, which means it’s also a soft stone. It’s easy to carve with a Dremel and you can also use it for your first project. The only downside of this stone is that it’s difficult to polish. 
• Marble: While you can use this stone for your first carving project, I recommend you try any of the stones mentioned above before moving to marble. That’s because it has the MOHS hardness level of 3 – 5, making it a harder option than alabaster and limestone. 

Make sure you’re using a high quality Dremel if you’ll be carving harder stone.

Step 2: Ensure Safety

A Dremel can be very dangerous if you use it carelessly and don’t take safety measures before turning it on. The rotating bit of a Dremel can lead to an unwanted hand injury and that’s why you should wear a pair of thin leather gloves.

Not only will it keep your hands safe but it will also allow you to hold the stone easily.

You also want to wear a dust mask and safety goggles to keep your face safe from the dust and debris that the carving process will produce.

Step 3: Understand Grain Pattern

Make sure that you don’t use the Dremel across the grain of the stone because this is what sets its strength. It’ll increase the risk of cracking, splitting, or breaking the stone to destroy your carving experience.

The grain is a pattern made up of waves and lines that run through the entire stone. Some stones have coarse grains that you can easily see with a naked eye. Additionally, some stones come with fine grain, which makes it difficult to determine the grain direction with a naked eye.

In this case, you’ll need to put it up to the light to determine the direction of the grain. If you still can’t determine it, I recommend you use a magnifier. It’ll allow you to easily see the grain pattern of the stone you want to carve.

Step 4: Choose Design

Now you’ll need to choose the design that you’ll be carving on the stone. You can search on the internet to choose a suitable design. Make sure that you select something simple and easy to carve.

Choosing a complex design for your first stone carving project is not recommended. Not only will it be difficult to carve but it will also lead to discouragement if you fail to achieve decent results.

So, choose a design that has a simple outer shape and minimal intersecting lines.

Step 5: Draw Outline

After selecting the design, print it out and draw it on the stone. You can use a graphite pencil for this purpose because it doesn’t leave any permanent marks and allows you to use the sharp tip to draw any design easily. 

If you’re using a dark-colored stone, use a white colored pencil so that you can easily see the outline while using Dremel for carving.

Step 6: Cut Outline

Equip your Dremel with a tapered head diamond burr bit to carve the basic outline. If you need to remove some of the parts of the stone, use a cut-off wheel instead of the diamond bit.

While carving the outline, you can set your Dremel to its maximum speed to accelerate the carving process. The main purpose of this step is to transform the stone into the basic shape depending on the design you selected. 

However, you’ll need to hold the Dremel firmly and be extra careful while running it on the stone’s surface at high speed to prevent accidents. 

In addition, make sure that you carve the outline by running the Dremel along the stone grain and moving your tool from right to left (against the rotating bit’s direction).

Your Dremel can fly off if you run it from left to right or by following the direction of the bit’s rotation which can lead to an injury.

Step 7: Apply Rubbing Alcohol

Once you have carved the basic outline, apply the rubbing alcohol to the stone to make its surface smooth. Use a dry brush with nylon bristles or a piece of cotton to get rid of debris and dust from the carving surface.

Rubbing alcohol makes the surface a bit softer and allows the Dremel to run on the stone smoothly. Therefore, you will need to apply it to the stone multiple times throughout the carving process whenever the surface feels rough.

Step 8: Set Dremel Speed

The speed range that most Dremel tools offer is 5,000 to 35,000 RPMs. While you can set your tool to any speed, I recommend you go with the 10,000 RPM speed if you’re using any of the stones listed above. 

If you’re using a harder stone with more than a 5 MOHS hardness rating, you can go with the 12,000 to 15,000 RPM speed. It’s important to note that the higher the speed, the more difficult it’ll be to control the Dremel. 

Start with lower speed settings of 10,000 to 12,000 RPMs and increase it if you think you can control the Dremel easily. 

Different Dremel tools have different speed settings.

Step 9: Carve Main Design

Now you need to carve the main design that you selected using a diamond-coated bit with a pointy end. Depending on the design you selected you can use a 1.5 to 2.5 millimeters thick diamond burr. 

Use the printout as a reference and begin to follow the lines you marked. Some people wrongly assume that starting from the corner and moving towards the center is the best strategy to carve a line on a stone.

However, you shouldn’t do that for every line because it can increase the risk of breaking or damaging the stone if you’re running your tool across the grain. Therefore, the best strategy is to follow the grain of the stone.

Make sure that you always carve the deepest part of the line first and then move away from that part as the line to be carved becomes shallower. It’ll also decrease the risk of breaking the stone.

In addition, you might also need to run your Dremel several times in the same area to carve a single line because of the hard surface of the stone. But never try to make a deeper line in a single pass to minimize the risk of damaging your stone.

Step 10: Add Details

Use a 0.4- to 1-millimeter thick diamond bit with a pointy end to add finer details. Make sure that you hold your Dremel perpendicular to your workpiece during this step. Holding it like a pencil can increase the risk of damaging adjacent lines and features and it also won’t allow you to make finer cuts.

If you’re working with a softer stone, I recommend you create a deeper overall design. That’s because softer stones weather easily and a shallow carving will fade quickly.

Step 11: Sand and Polish

Once you have finished carving your stone with a Dremel, it’ll appear rough and you’ll need to sand and polish it to give it an attractive look.

You can equip your Dremel tool with a high-grit (at least 600) sanding bit to clean and sand the entire stone. It’ll provide your stone with a much cleaner and neater appearance.

After that, you can apply a polishing compound with the help of a cotton piece to your stone and rub the entire surface. Then you can attach a brush bit to your Dremel and polish the carving to make it shiny and attractive.  

Final Words

Learning how to carve a stone with a Dremel is a time-consuming process but it’s not as difficult as many people think. Ending up with poor or non-satisfactory results is pretty common for first-timers but you must never lose heart.

Keep trying different designs by using the detailed steps that I have discussed above and you’ll start noticing a significant improvement in each iteration.