Alabaster, transparent white tuber

As a soft stone, alabaster is easy to work by hand. Depending on how thinly the stone is worked, it appears transparent-white. Alabaster is not suitable for outdoor sculptures, as wind and rain attack the material. The stone must be protected from strong sunlight if it is to retain its transparency.

Transparent alabaster is very suitable for simple, abstract forms and flat works, as its translucency can be particularly emphasised.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

The small pieces are split from alabaster slabs and may have sawn edges. The larger pieces are usually supplied as raw nodules.

We can supply you with the white-transparent alabaster in individual sizes up to several hundred kilograms, as raw nodules or sawn as slabs up to a maximum thickness of 35 cm and a diameter of up to 70 cm. Please contact us for a customised offer.

PROCESSING

The white, transparent alabaster is very easy to work by hand. For working with chisels, we particularly recommend claw chisels and flat or lettering chisels with forged steel heads in combination with a wooden mallet. This allows the stone to be worked gently. We do not recommend point chisels because they can easily destroy the stone structure too deeply without being noticed, which often only becomes apparent when sanding in matt white areas. Like wood, alabaster can also be worked very well with gouges. Rasps and files are also suitable.

If you want to protect the stone with wax after sanding, please do not heat the stone under any circumstances. Unlike with other stones, this destroys the structure and the alabaster loses its transparency. We also recommend that you do not wash the stone with hot water.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Alabaster is a crystalline form of the mineral gypsum. Alabaster is extracted by mining nodules of different sizes that are found in the ground. Depending on where they are found, not only the size of the nodules varies, but also the colouring of the alabaster. Iron oxide penetrating the stone from the outside can colour the stone pinkish to reddish, for example. In addition to transparent white, there is grey, light yellow, reddish, brown and almost black alabaster with white veins in some cases.

Stone is a natural product. We endeavour to reproduce the appearance of our sculptural stones as accurately as possible in the illustrations so that the character of the stone can be recognised. Ultimately, each stone is a unique piece and the appearance may differ accordingly from the illustration.