Art Encyclopedia - Pointing Machine

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Pointing Machine
A pointing machine is a kind of three-dimensional tracing machine, used by late 19th century and early 20 century sculptors to reproduce a clay model in stone.

Pointing machines typically consisted of an upright stand carrying movable arms, each arm having attached to it an adjustable measuring rod that showed the depth to which each point must be drilled. Sometimes hundreds and even thousands of points would be taken. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries most stone sculpture was produced by this mechanical method, but thereafter sculptors increasingly rejected it in favour of direct carving.