Articles by Bart FleggReturning the natural look to a cut stone edge can be a daunting task. Some choose to leave the edge with ugly cut marks while others choose to thermal the edge with a welding torch. My personal favorite way to return the natural beauty of stone is by rock facing. We will discuss the 4 steps of rock facing a 2” thick piece of Indian Sandstone for the use as a stair tread.
The two tools you need to rock face this tread are a chisel and a hammer. I prefer to use a mason’s chipper from Trow and Holden because I have found it works the best. The first step is to choose the edge you will be rock facing and scribe a line ¼” from the edge along the entire length of the tread. Next place your chisel on the line and tap lightly at a 90* angle along the entire line. Tap really lightly, Indian sandstone is a very soft stone. This ensures that when you are rock facing the entire carbide comes into contact with the stone. The next thing to do is to place your chisel on a 30* angle on the line and knock off the corner. You only want to knock off the corner ¼” from the top and from the side. Imagine you are trying to round the stone. When doing this along the line skip the width of your chisel and do it again so you have gaps in your rock facing.
The next step is to flip the stone over and repeat on the other side, mark where you skipped the rock facing on the top side. This time knock off the edge where you have marked leaving the same gap as the top side.
Flip the stone over and take off the edges that you have left the top side.
Flip the stone once more and finish the rock facing where you are skipped on the bottom side.
The whole process is designed to give the stair tread a rounded look. Take a little off at a time to ensure that you don’t end up with an ugly useless stair tread.