Yes, well John we have more in common than you might think, I also
live in a nice little place that has been by-passed by the modern
convenience of water mains. However this was not always the case as
we moved away from the water mains about 7 years ago.
We don’t have as large a supply of tank water as you but as I now
basically only do jade carving I don’t use a lot of water slabbing as
a single carving can take anywhere from 10 to 40 hours work. Lots of
carving in a decent size slab eh.
Anyhow to get to the point because of this when I built my new
workshop I stayed with the system I new best. Yours obviously works
well and suits your circumstances. Every man to his own poison!.
Kiwis are ingenious characters ain’t they, my counterbalance is a
paint tin full of sand with assorted lumps of lead and iron.
And to the person who bought slabs of jade covered in oil, I would be
very careful doing this, not because of possible contamination but
rather because the oil gets into cracks/flaws in jade and conceals
them very well. Very frustrating to start work on a nice piece and
have it fall apart because of a crack that was not readily visible.
Keith Torckler, Cornwallis, New Zealand