beginner in stone

["George Graham" <georgergraham@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Sheila,

The kind of stone you have is the most important thing
to establish first. The reason is that the type of stone
dictates what you can do to it. Considering the age, and
the fact that the lettering has weathered, and not just
been stained, its probably a soft stone, marble or
limestone.If you can take a file and cut a notch in it,
then you can work it by hand. I brought up vermont white
marble because it was used extensivly in the past. You
can recognize it as it looks like a block of sugar. Its
very white,  and very soft. You can shave off the
surface by just pushing a very sharp chisel along the
surface.

Your stone could also be from tennessee, there is  a lot
of marble that comes from there. The most common is
called pink tennessee, which is actually beige with a
little pinkness to it. It usually has thin black lines
running parallel about 4 to 6 inches apart. If that is
what you have then you have a very strong marble that
can be worked.

Georgia marble was and is still used in the monument
industry. Its also white but has gentle gray shadow like
streaks running through it. Its chrystals are very
distinct , and might be as big as one eight of an inch .
Vermont marble chrystals are like grains of sugar.
Georgia margle is also very hard but can be worked by
hand. It tends to be a lot more brittle. Some thing to
do with the big chrystals.

Indiana Limestone is the last one I'll tell you about.
When it is old and has sat outdoors for many years it
looks very dark grayish brown. It has a porous quality
to it. It soaks up a lot of water, and is very very
soft. You can take a woodrasp file and shape it.

I'm telling you about these 4 because they are the most
common marble found in cemeteries.

The vermont marble and indiana limestone are very soft
and the lettering could be almost recut by hand, using
no hammer. These stones are very easily damaged, so
don't go beating on them with a 3 pound hammer!  Go
slow!

The tennessee and georgia marbles are very hard stone.
If this is what you have then you won't find much
weathering of the sharp edges of the lettering. A patina
 from old age and dirt builds up on the surface but the
stone itself doese't round over much at all. If this is
what you have , all you might need to do is sand over
the outside with a hand held sanding block using a 80 or
120 grit sand paper.

Once again, I say, go slow, and experiment on a back
corner to see what happens.

There has got to be someone in the monument industry
around there who can give you some on the spot advice on
what you have. I agree with you that you should keep
your families original stones. You probably can't
replace them with something as good . Don't let anyone
talk you into scraping them until you have explored all
you options. Paying someone to restore them is a very
expensive and timeconsuming project.

I would't touch your stones with any kind of electric
grinder. You can do tremendous damage , very fast. A
dramel tool would just about evaporate the stone away.

Tell me more about what the stone looks like. My rule of
thumb, is, less is better!

Thats enough for now,
George Graham