Look at the lathe....

[Toddy]

A youtube video, but look at how basic this lathe is....from about a minute in.

 

[MrEd]

Wow. I wonder what the stone is?

 

[Pattree]

What an incredibly skilful craftsman.

 

[Toddy]

Wow. I wonder what the stone is?

I wonder if it might be some variety of soapstone ?
The Vikings were aceramic but made their cooking pots from soapstone. It has a long provenance.

 

[Brizzlebush]

That's extraordinary.
I was wondering how he'd power the lathe. As with everything in India, if you can involve extra labour, then they do!

I guess he could use a branch like a trad pole lathe?

 

[Dave Budd]

that's a cracking video, thanks Mary I've built a strap lathe for a stone worker to turn smaller soapstone bowls, but it had captive bearings, so mounting the blank was awkward. That one is much better! I know a couple of folks that carve relatively large bowls from soapstone and serpentine(?), that looks like some kind of mudstone but I'm no geologist

A pole lathe could be used but are much more complex to build. I've seen lots of shale bracelets made on them (as well as wooden all sorts of course). The stone doesn't require much torque to cut so should work well if you can mount it securely (which is the problem with most pole lathe set ups: the string pulls at the work, whereas this has the work unaffected by side loads)