Transferring design

Quoted text begins.Finally, one of my books says to go over your slate with some 400 or 600 wet
or dry sandpaper to remove little chips and scratches, and then oil the
stone with linseed oil.
End of quote.

I'm just finishing up a house sign in black slate and am going to use
mineral oil to darken it up. I have seen this done and it looks beautiful,
however I'm not sure how long it will last outside. I also would prefer it
didn't darken the letters, just the polished surface, so I plan to do a
final touchup on the letters scraping by hand as George suggests to take of
the surface of stone that will undoubtebly have oil on it. Any forseeable
problems with this? (I had tried polishing this slate with tin oxide, but it
mustn't be hard enough stone, and leaves white powder in crevices...)

As far as the flaking Norman, one more tip is to make sure and have a
downward, inward angle to the cut of the blade.

Karen