I was looking through some old pictures and i found some that I took of the granite hearth that I cut way back in 2003. the hearth was cut from Chelmsford Granite from Chelmsford, MA. I rock faced or chiseled the front and two sides, for the back I used a 4″ angle grinder with a 4″ diamond blade to cut the back flat. This took some time as I could only cut 1″ deep all around, the granite slab was 3″ thick.
Once I cut on the top and sides I used that as a guide to grind the rest flat using two stages. The first is taking the saw blade and cutting small vertical cuts along the back of the piece not cutting deeper then my established guide. I made these cuts every 1/2″ or so. After that was complete I took what is called a “tracer” chisel which is a carbide chisel angled inwards on both ends. This chisel is good for tracing split lines(I’ll explain in another post) and also removing excess granite material. once I am satisfied with the excess removal the surface is relatively flat but still a little bumpy. The next stage is taking a diamond wheel and “grinding” the granite surface smooth.
After that the hearth was complete! the real hard part was hefting this 60″x24″x3″ granite hearth that weighed 420lbs. up 35 flights of stairs and into my living room! Luckily I had my Dad to give me a hand, it was still damn heavy and a lot of work to get that damn thing in there.
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- Chelmsford Granite Hearth
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- Bottom view
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- close up of corner
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- back of hearth
