Only as a hobby. I haven't done any stonework for quite some time, but for the last few days I was thinking about starting again. I've got lots of pieces of stone which are waiting to be converted into rings, or some other things if I get bored of making rings only. I'm really not your best resource of information for that, however, but what I did find out is:
- you first have to see what kind of stone would you like to shape, in terms of its hardness. Since I also often go to nearby mountain(s), I pay attention to particular kinds of stones which I know are "softer" than some more prevalent kinds. They usually have visible crystal structure. They are also soluble in hydrochloric acid, and that is VERY important, because you get to easily clean such stones of dirt and do some final finish if need be, removing excess visible lines created during shaping it.
- when it comes to hardness, I only used this "soft" stone. I can provide pictures of various sizes and shapes that I found if you want to get a feel of how they look in the nature. More regular stones, found in abundance, aren't fit for the kind of work I prefer (making rings), because of two reasons: 1. they're
much harder and 2. much more brittle. They easily crack when making holes in them. More... precious stones, however, require more powerful and stronger (diamond-class) tools to shape, and I didn't want to immediately spend money on that.
- you can buy stone pieces cheaply from local suppliers of building materials, if you're interested in that, but they're just regular stone, though with effort can be converted to beautiful pieces of handcrafted stuff. I prefer to use stuff from nature, since I already often go outside there. In the latter case, many pieces of stone have cavities, weak points etc. so careful inspection of 1. what do you want to do with the piece, 2. how large the piece must be to achieve that and 3. are there any flaws that might cause the piece to break during manipulation, are all very important. But this takes time and couple of failures to get to know properly, after a time you'll know it "instinctively" so to speak.
- as for tools, the REQUIRED are: metal files (for stone) of various sizes and granulation (rougher granulation for the early shaping, finer for later), drill and its accessories, sandpaper of various granulations (for final polishing), this thing (but be careful that the stone is not in direct contact with the metal, instead cover the metal with some paper or even handkerchiefs):