CNC Gothic Stone Carving by the Carmelite Monks | Hacker News Reader

CNC Gothic Stone Carving by the Carmelite Monks

carmelitegothic.com

164 pointsmcenedella27 comments

They roast Mystic Monk Coffee to support their effort.

https://www.mysticmonkcoffee.com/pages/about-us-wyoming-carm...

Personally, I'd suggest they roast a blend called "Jawa Java." It would probably sell. But then people might question where they got all the hardware to build such a beautiful complex.

For anyone unaware, entrepreneurial self-sustainment is a bit of a cornerstone for monastic congregations. It is enshrined in the rule of St Benedict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Saint_Benedict

Meant in the nicest way: you do learn the most curious things on HN.

Worth remembering they do accept visitors for a free-will donation at many of their houses, Catholic faith not required. Spent a week at one a few months ago.

But I thought Carmelites were always friars (the White Friars), who get out and do things like found my old school -- not monks, like Benedictines. Of course there was rather more than self-sustainment in medieval England, at least...

The terminology of "friar" and "monk" is often used more fluidly these days. The Carmelites are a mendicant order, so we'd normally call them friars, but members of this group clearly call themselves monks.

You are correct that Carmelites are not Benedictines.

The machines they use are unusual.[1] Multi-axis CNC saws are not a common type of CNC machine. The cutting technique is quite different from metal machining.

The software for this is really niche.[2] Quite impressive.[3]

There's a whole industry grinding out marble bathtubs, granite countertops, decorative friezes, and other McMansion stuff. So there's a market for the machinery.

[1] https://prussiani.com/en/

[2] https://www.dmrsoftware.com/wcam2k-eng.html

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etX33jp20pY

I'm not sure, a lot of big metal parts are cut on a horizontal mill. A horizontal mill is basically a mill that cuts using a cutter that is basically a wide saw. The machines they are using could be described as stone focused horizontal mills.

https://fractory.com/horizontal-vs-vertical-milling/

They've been doing that in the construction of the Sagrada Familia for a long time now. This link is unfortunately not very informative: https://www.arup.com/projects/sagrada-familia

Thanks for the link. I read that they're using CNC machined pre-stressed stone panels. More details in this link https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/baug/ifb/i...

Did you also see the load model Gaudí used? It's a wire model of the church, upside down (e.g. https://images.oobject.com/thumbdir/thumbnails/3/21/321da867...)

I wonder to which extend CNC and additive manufacturing will bring back ornate large contemporary style buildings.

CNC got cheaper but not THAT cheaper.

Even if electronic and software got cheap, it's still a bunch of precision equipment and that's always expensive, and will still take hours to make the part.

Like, sure, cheaper than to hire a bunch of artists/craftsmen but still much, much more expensive compared to making another square

> it's still a bunch of precision equipment and that's always expensive

Like rockets? Precision equipment can also be mass-produced.

What could be a hard limiting factor? I cannot imagine one. Once AI can design and build stone monuments, funny things will be built. Sooner or later, rock will become a rare commodity.

Depends on your definition of mass production. According to the article, CNC machines for stones are still a very much niche application. At least compared to those for metals.

Also, most large-scale construction nowadays is made from reinforced concrete, for requirements (including price and speed) that are hard to beat that with stone construction, even with assist by CNC machines. I certainly wouldn't mind a comeback of stone masonry in modern architecture though, both from an aesthetic point of view, and considering that stone buildings are usually made to last the ages.

Precision manufacturing equipment requires regular maintenance and needs to be operated by skilled workers. You don't just plop a rock into a machine and get object out. Managing work-holding is like 50% of the work.

Generally you can operate only on some surfaces in one position and then you'll need to rotate workpiece/change tools/type of machine and somehow hold the piece and place is in the right spot with really high precission which is harder than it sounds.

Maybe not CNC carved stone but I'd love to see buildings covered with 3D printed stucco for instance.

Most ornaments for buildings in 19th century were cast from molds, not carved. Lower quality, but much quickly and cheaply mass produced.

Even if you 3D print a whole cathedral in concrete, printing something really detailed and the intricate takes more time than a straight line or simple curve, because the print head needs to ac/decelerate. And time, even that of machines, is money. But much less than of humans, so the gap is smaller.

Not sure about resin printing, but you can't resin print concrete (yet, AFAIK).

Very interesting. That's not what interpolate means though.

I hope they're training them in classical sculpture as well, even if it's just in Zbrush. Otherwise it'll just be mass manufactured McCathedrals. There's no substitute for aesthetic training. However, that being given, using any tools available to extend an artisan's abilities and output is obviously the right move.

Partway down they show a monk working with a pen and touchscreen to do the actual sculpting. It looks like they're definitely using sculpture knowledge and artistry to create the models rather than just copy pasting other resources.

Any such construction is necessarily to the glory of CNC machining, specifically, not God except insofar as the conception of CNC machines is itself God's.

Landscaping boulders near me are $260 a tonne. How do these brothers afford the stone or placing of finished stone?

Here's nice footage of a big ol' stone CNC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI8OmfEK8cE

If you're buying rock from a landscaping business, you're paying retail. I would think they'd buy directly from a quarry.

And given they're monks, if the quarry owner is Catholic they might get an especially good deal.

Looking at their monastery location on Google Maps, they very well might have their own quarries.

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