Hi Rich, Yup! You pretty much got it! As far as the base material, a nice piece of granite or marble would be great, even in a roughed out form.. I once had a friend, (one once..
anyway) that was an accomplished artist, and he came out here to visit, this was at the heigth of the building construction boom, and we visited a counter top cutting place. They had a big pile of "BIG" cut off pieces that were free for the taking.. We loaded up his van with so much free scrap pieces that his van sagged on the rear springs, worring us a bit about the 1400 drive home.. He made it, and the marble and granite now adorn some pretty nice bronze sculptures!....
... Believe me, the base is the easy part.. but necessarly heavy and hard to ship inexpensively.. I'm not to anxious to get into that arena, but will probably have to at some point in this journey... Oh, BTW, The mounting attachment bolt is a 5/16" X 18 thread and you couldn't bust it off with a hammer... OK, maybe with a big hammer..
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...til...lat'r...GT