All About Slate Rods
I’ve been cutting up slate into rods on my wet saw this week, making sure I have enough for an upcoming residential course, as well as for adding to my mosaic kits. And as I stood there all kitted out in my overalls and safety gear, getting messy, the thought ‘why do I bother with this?’ crossed my mind. Afterall, there are other (much less messy) ways to prepare slate.
I do have my reasons for doing this though, and I thought I’d share a bit more about them today, along with some general hints and tips for cutting and working with slate rods.
Just so we are all on the same page here, when I say slate rods, I’m talking about the long thin pieces of slate that I use in my mosaics. You can see then artfully arranged in a jar below. This photo was taken a few years ago when I clearly had too much my time on my hands! These days my photos of the rods look more like the second one, all laid on out a towel to dry!
So before we explore the practicalities of how I cut and use them, let’s answer that initial question - why bother in the first place? There are various ways you can break up slate. For example, I often just use a hammer. So why go for the messy option?
To put it simply - I like a bit of variety! Cutting slate into rods on a wet saw gives you a greater range of shapes and surfaces to play with.
The cut edge of the slate (the one that’s been against the blade) becomes very smooth, which contrasts nicely with the rougher, more organic edges you get when you use a hammer to break it up.
It also becomes lighter in colour, giving a greater range of values to play with in your mosaic.
Finally, you get those nice long thin shapes, which again, provide an interesting contrast to shorter/ smaller pieces.
So having established that slate rods are a useful mosaic material, let’s move onto the practicalities. How do you actually cut them?
Well, I use a wet tile saw. This is an electric saw that has a circular diamond blade. The blade passes through a trough of water which keeps things cool and reduces the dust.
It’s a messy process and best done outside or in a garage. There is often water spraying from the blade and you end up with a load of sludge from all the watery slate dust. If you want to see a short video of the process you can do so here.
I usually cut my rods about 1cm wide. Not only do I want to be able to get my nippers around the rod to split it further, but I am also mindful of the weight of the mosaic. If you use a lot of rods on edge, your mosaic will get heavy pretty quickly. In fact if I plan to use a lot in a particular piece, I will cut them even thinner.
So once the rods are cut, washed and dried what then? Well I use my nippers to split them and cut them to size. If you want to see this in action click here. Yes, I use wheeled nippers. No, that’s not what they are intended for. But I find that sometimes that pinpoint of pressure is enough to split the slate and its very satisfying to do so!
And here’s an extra tip for using the wheeled nippers. Some brands, e.g. Leponitt, have a pin to restrict them opening too far. The pin is circled in red in the image here. I remove the pin so they will open wider. This is also helpful if you are working with chunky bits of smalti!
You may find that by removing the pin, you increase the pressure the nippers put on your hands as they open. To solve this issue, just put an elastic band round the handles to reduce some of the pressure.
I also use my sidebiter nippers to help cut the rods to size. Sometimes it’s more of a break than a cut, and often the slate will break where it wants to, rather than where you want it to, but that’s what you get when you work with natural materials!
And if you want to see some examples of the rods being used, I’ve shared a couple of my mosaics below that both feature a lot of slate rods. Click on the image for more details about each mosaic.
So there you have it, cutting slate rods can be a bit of an effort and can be messy, but they can make a nice addition to your mosaics. Unfortunately I am not aware of anywhere that sells slate rods, so if you want to experiment with them you’ll have to get messy and cut your own! Unless you attend one of my workshops of course :)