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Workshop
Workshop & Quality Control
How a piece is made here — block selection, setting out, carving, finishing, inspection and crating — and the points at which we check the work rather than hope.
The workshop sits in Huian County, Quanzhou, in a district where stone carving, block yards and finishing shops are all within a short drive of each other. That matters more than it sounds: it is why a specific block can be selected for a specific commission, and why an unusual one-off piece is treated as ordinary work rather than an exception.
Everything is carved here. We do not take a commission and pass it to a third shed. The carvers who work on temple figures and public monuments are the same carvers who will work on your piece, and the person who quotes your job is the person who inspects it before it is crated.
How a piece is made
Six stages, and what happens at each one
Block selection
The block is chosen for the commission, not whoever is selling stone that week. Colour, grain direction, soundness and any natural flaw that will land under the face are checked before it leaves the yard.
Setting out
The approved maquette is transferred to the block by measuring points, not by eye. On portrait work the principal reference points of the face are marked first and everything else is built from them.
Roughing out
Material comes off in bands, working from the back and the base towards the features. No detail is cut at this stage — the object is to arrive at the right mass without committing the face.
Detail
The features, drapery and ornament are cut in. This is the slowest stage and the one where a commission is won or lost; it is also the stage most often photographed for the client.
Finishing
Surface work to the agreed finish — fine-tooled, honed, polished or bush-hammered — with the tooling direction kept consistent so the surface reads evenly under raking light.
Inspection and packing
The finished piece is inspected against the approved maquette and the agreed drawing, then crated on foam and timber blocking with the carved faces wrapped.
Inside the workshop
The work, at the stage each photograph was taken
Quality control
A static workshop cannot re-do a three-metre figure cheaply. So the checks are placed early, where a correction is still possible.
- Block inspected for flaws before cutting begins, and the client told if a flaw changes what the stone can hold
- Principal setting-out points checked against the approved maquette before any material is removed
- Dated photographs at roughing, detail and finishing stages, sent to the client without being asked for
- Section joints checked for fit before the pieces leave the workshop, not on site
- Finished surface checked under raking light, where flat spots and uneven tooling show up
- Crates photographed open and closed so the client can inspect before signing for delivery
Packing and crating
Pieces taller than roughly 2.5 m are carved in two to seven blocks and assembled on site. Each block goes into a plywood case on foam and timber blocking, banded with steel strapping, with the carved faces wrapped.
Every case is photographed open and closed, and the loading is photographed as well, so you can inspect the condition of the piece before you sign for it.
Documentation
Documents that travel with the goods include the commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading and certificate of origin, plus any destination-specific declaration the shipment requires.
Which certificates apply depends on the destination country and the stone. Ask us what your market requires at the quoting stage and we will confirm in writing what we can supply — we would rather state that up front than promise a document we cannot issue.
Ask us what your destination requires
Certificates, declarations and packing standards vary by country and by stone. Tell us where the piece is going and we will confirm in writing which documents we supply.