Stone Carved Heart

Hello friends, In this is instructables I am going to show you how to make this beautiful Stone Carved Heart. This build is completely dedicated to my fiance there is a little story behind building this heart shape trophy. The story starts on 28 January 2018 when her father sees my bio data on a matrimonial site and he bring a marriage proposal for me as in India and South Asia most of the people preferred arranged marriage because they are long lasting with full of love and happiness. I also think so because I have seen a lot of examples in my country. My parents also have an arrange marriage in 1989 and they still love a lot.

How Arrange Marriage Started in India

India’s history began with the Aryans coming to the South Asia continent around 1800-1600 BC. During the Aryan time, India went through the Vedic age, the era of the Nations, the Mauryan Empire and the Kushan Empire. Now it is very hard to define which social status India was in during the era of the Nations and the Mauryan Empire. But it was mainly between the slavery society and the feudal society. The source of Hinduism, Brahmanism, developed and boomed during the era of the Nations, which was deeply rooted in the social status of India at that time, will be discussed later on. The traditional marriage in India was greatly influenced by Hinduism, which shaped the social opinion about marriage and especially the discriminatory view on women. First, there is no such thing as free love in ancient India. Marriage is considered as a tool to form a community of interests between different families. The leader of a big family could decide the marriage of the whole family, and the decision is mainly based on the interest of the whole family, not on the love between the two persons involved. The marriage relationship is often decided when the couples are still very young. In some cases, the children’s future wives or husbands are decided even before they are born. Second, compared to men, Indian women are heavily discriminated. They are considered the wealth of the husband, and it is very reasonable for a husband to desert his wife if he has proper reasons. So, it is even more difficult for a woman to seek her own love. If a man died during a marriage, his wife is believed to blame for his death. And this wife should maintain a single for the rest of her life. Again, there is no freedom for her to choose a husband. But now a day there is a lot of change in arrange marriage due to modernization & technology era.

Let’s come to our story.

Her father talked to my father and shown some pictures and her bio-data. After their proposal, my father asked me Do you like her? I think for a while and accept it without knowing anything about her nature, dream and like/unlike. She is an Information Technology (IT) engineer and I am a Mechanical engineer. This is the first time in my life that I am passing through this stage through which everybody has to be passed. After my confirmation, her father decided meetup in their hometown. Her family plan our meetup in a Gurdwara. When I reached their hometown along with my family and the first time I saw her I fall in love with her smile. We take snacks together and our parents give permission to chat privately so that we can know each other more. Although it's a very less time to know each other I think that half an hour that we spend together was so awesome. We talked about each other dreams, their motives, likes dislikes. she is so charming and beautiful with an ever-smiling face. I liked her nature a lot. She likes fast food a lot and watches movies a lot but I don't like that stuff too much but I can manage. Finally, we both tell our decision to Our Parents.

One question she asked me during our conversation that how much you love me after marriage. I also don't know how to show and express at that time that how much I love her. I told her like this universe that much love I do but that is the one question who inspired me to make this stuff. I want something unique for her something that cannot be replicated easily. I don't know what I can make unique. I have no ideas or plan in my mind. Then I feel to express love, the heart is the best thing to make. Although I can make it from wood or any other softer material. But I want to make it unique in which my intense workmanship and hard work is involved so I choose granite and marble and carved her name and my name into the heart. It took almost 63 hours to build and the final result in front of you. After seeing this heart shape trophy which I send on her birthday she was so delighted and mesmerized by the beauty of this heart. She also gets a tear in her eyes when I show her how it's made. Her reaction makes me delighted and I finally she got the answer that how much I love her.

With this instructables I want to show that deep love still exists in this world. And love, at first sight, is also happened. Winning a contest is not important for me. The most important thing for me is blessings of your.

Material

I have not spent much on the material. I found these scrap pieces of marble and wood are the leftover material when we renovate our home last year in March. These are the pieces actually used for flooring work. This is not a costly present for any body but I worked with my dedication, so that I can make it precious for my loved one.

Tool used

4-inch angle grinder with an adjustable voltage regulator

Dremel 3000

Jigsaw

metalworking Files

chisel

Glue gun

First of all, I take 2 scrap pieces of marble and 1 one black granite piece of size 12x12”. After that, I made a template of heart And print it onto a paper so that I can use it as a stencil for marking on the marble and granite piece. After tracing I cut out the shape of the heart with the help of marble cutting saw. While cutting please ensure that use plenty of water so that your diamond blade could not wear and cut operation will be smooth. After cutting I refine the edges up to my black outlines.

After cutting all the pieces I glued all the piece with epoxy. To glued black granite with marble I made some scratches on it so that its smooth surface gets rough and epoxy may stick perfectly on both of marble surfaced. After gluing I placed some heavy load on it so that bonding become perfect.

After gluing the pieces, then I refine the edges with the help of coarse diamond wheel angle grinder. After getting my exact profile of the heart then I started giving a curve to the edges with the help of the coarse grinding wheel. Before that, I marked the small heart inside the heart shape so that I can not grind beyond that marked heart. After getting the rough shape of rounded heart then I changed the diamond wheel to fine size going from 60 to 2000 grit I grind the edges and the heart and polish the surface so it may look finished. it took almost 9 hr to grinding. One of the important thing I want to tell you in stone working you should require a low rpm angle grinder but I don’t have such adjustable speed grinder. To overcome that problem, I used a speed regulator (potentiometer). By which you can reduce rpm of your grinder as you required and it's not that costly.

After refining the edges then I made a paper stencil on Photoshop after cutting that stencil, I glued that stencil to my stone heart. Then I traced the letter with the black marker, Then I removed that stencil. The same thing I did on the back side of my heart but this time I interchange the position of names the motive behind it is not only I love her but she also loves me a lot. I engraved the letter with diamond bits. First, I finalize the outlines of the letter with a fine diamond bit. After that, I created a cavity inside the letter and the heart shape so that I can fill that cavity with colored resin.

After creating the cavity with diamond bits, I first clean the cavities with fresh water so that no dust residue remained inside the cavity and dried it for 2-3 hour after drying I made a border with the help of hot glue so that resin may not spill over the cavity that I made after that fill the cavity with colored resin. The color I made with golden and copper pearl powder. Which looks really amazing after it mixed with the resin. This was the first time I experimented with the pearl power and resin and results were really amazing.

After drying for a whole day I first removed the glue with wood chisel than with the help of palm sander with 120 grit sandpaper I gently placed my palm sander on letters and carefully removed. After that I finished it with the diamond bit starting from 100 grit and ended to 2000 grit. In the end finished heart is in front of you.

After that, I found that how I showcase it, for whom I made this. For that, I took a scrap piece of pine wood and cut it according to my heart shaped stencil I made this stand slightly bigger in size compared to my stone heart because pine wood is so light and with the extra area it can balance the load of my stone heart. After cutting I have rounded the edges of my stand with my router and finished it with hand sanding. I also made a little heart shape in the center of my stand from wood so that I can place my stone heart over it and it looks like a trophy as well. I have no plans to do such things I did whatever my mind says.

After making the stand I thought how I place my heart over the wooden stand.so that it will showcase my love from both sides and looks pleasant to the eyes. I tried a lot of things carved wooden bracket for holding my heart then made an acrylic bracket for holding my stone heart but I couldn't make them good also they are not leaving looking pleasant to eyes then my brother suggested me to cast that holding bracket we made a mold by covering the area of my stone heart up to which I required bracket and cover it from all the places. After covering I filled the mold with polyester resin and cure it for 24 hrs. After curing completed, I removed the bracket and detached it from the stone heart by light tapping with the mallet.

After removal the bracket I finished the bracket by carving it with a carbide bit and I did a lot of hand sanding with emery paper starting from 60 grit and finished it with 2000 grit. After that checked the stone heart that completely sits on the bracket or not. But the fitting was insane I am happy with the bracket. It took a lot of time to do this and I become so dirty after doing this. Before this my plan was to kept it transparent that's why I didn't add any color to the resin. But then the plan changes and decided to do a paint onto it. Although it would be good if I add pearl pigment to the resin during casting process.

After making all components of my stone heart trophy. I first stain the stand via walnut stain after that I painted it with blue pearl powder that I mixed in clear. To paint bracket for the stone heart holder I first painted the bracket with primer after that I used copper pearl powder mixed with clear for painted the bracket and in the end fitted 3 plastic buffers to the stand.

We Finally Engaged on 18-4-2018 that was the best day of my life.she told me that this stone heart trophy is the best gift of her life.