Reply To: In sculpting mode, is it possible to lock any arbitrary axis?

You are right about the keyframing, that would also rotate the Object itself, but you can rotate the local axes (in Object Mode) without rotating the Object (mesh):

then those axes are being used in Sculpt Symmetry and Lock:

You’d have to remember how much you rotated, if you would want to repeat that later on, but re-setting the rotation is done with ALT+R.