Repairing Granite

[Terry Swift]

All,

Looking to see if there is a good way to fill in small areas of granite that the laser made. One article I read says to use a black permanent marker or paint marker (best method). These are outside using a granite repair professional that will charge more than the granite piece is worth.

Has anyone tried this and how successful was it?

[Viktor Voroncov]

Here peoples just make TOTAL POLISHING in case of engraving mistake. But may be in USA it cost too much :(

[Larry Bratton]

I'm not sure I understand the problem. Can you post a photo?
Lithichrome stone paint might be an option? Its made to use on cemetery monuments

[Tom Bull]

Permanent marker is not really permanent, but I have used it to "camouflage" tiny scratches, it is not a repair. You have to be careful because the marker will show up on the surrounding area. Another option is high quality artist's oil paint applied all over and rubbed in.

[Chuck Stone]

Super glue? It makes a good filler and can be polished to a high gloss or
dulled down to a matte or sating finish.. and you don't need to color the
material.
Maybe if I saw a picture I'd know better.

[Terry Swift]

Chuck - never thought of SuperGlue as a kind of filler; but sounds fairly reasonable.

I've attached a scan of the granite. I'm not sure exactly why this happens (a sometimes occurrence). When doing these and other pieces, I use a source JPEG or other file provided for all future purchases by the customer and the art is cleaned up up of any stray dots / pixels in either PhotoShop or CorelDraw. It seems the laser is picking up the very top of the JPEG, etc. and printing out that line when it is all white and I'm printing only black - as this particular JPEG is only black and white. I've had it happen on a couple of different pieces and designs; but again - the CDR is clean from my perspective (even zooming in to 800 or higher resolution to make sure everything is in alignment and no stray marks.

Kind of bewildered by it. :mad: :confused: :(

[Chuck Stone]

Ah.. I see now. Super glue may or may not help with that. I've used it on
chipped granite, marble, wood etc.. and where the broken surface and the
polished surface looked a different color because of the diffuse reflection.
Since the CA filled in the surface and the light wasn't scattered, the colors
matched after polishing. But I'm not sure that's what would work here.
Couldn't hurt to try it on a waste piece, though.

Are there any layers in the file that you cant' see? Any stray reflections
in the work area? Are there any straight lines in the file you're burning?
If not, then it can't be a reflection.. so most likely something in the file.

[Larry Bratton]

First of all Terry, try and avoid JPGs for this type work. Each time a JPG is saved and compressed, you lose quality. Use either a tiff,bmp or even png format. Just save it as such from Photoshop.
That appears to be some kind of artifact that was left over from your cleanup. I'm not sure if you can save this or not. The best hope in my opinion would be Lithichrome stone paint, which has very high longevity. It is also fairly expensive. You can get it at a good price from http://www.granitesalesandsupply.com/html/stone_setting.html
Good luck.

[Bill Cunningham]

Chuck - never thought of SuperGlue as a kind of filler; but sounds fairly reasonable.

I've attached a scan of the granite. I'm not sure exactly why this happens (a sometimes occurrence). When doing these and other pieces, I use a source JPEG or other file provided for all future purchases by the customer and the art is cleaned up up of any stray dots / pixels in either PhotoShop or CorelDraw. It seems the laser is picking up the very top of the JPEG, etc. and printing out that line when it is all white and I'm printing only black - as this particular JPEG is only black and white. I've had it happen on a couple of different pieces and designs; but again - the CDR is clean from my perspective (even zooming in to 800 or higher resolution to make sure everything is in alignment and no stray marks.

Kind of bewildered by it. :mad: :confused: :(

Another problem with a .jpg on that type of engraving, is with a .jpg you are engraving a greyscale, if there are no transition shades in the artwork, solid black would be much better.. Try using the trace function to redraw it to a vector drawing. You can then use a solid black fill, and also get rid of all the crud that was in the .jpg .. You can also charge a artwork fee for the conversion to usable artwork from a grayscale, or colour .jpg file. I tell people up front, unless it's a unedited, right from the camera photograph, if a .jpg is all they have, I will use it, but there will be a artwork cost to convert it. I will not work from a low res, or what they think is a sold black and white .jpg because it ain't. Poor results don't do me any favours.. All the customer knows is 'it looked great on screen, but this is what I got from the engraver"

[Ross Moshinsky]

You can do a few things.

1) Call a counter top specialist and see if anything can be done. They may be able to advise you on a DIY solution or they may be able to fix it for you for a small fee.

2) Call your customer up. Admit the error. Show them the photo. See if they want it for a discount. I've used this method with great success in the past. If you knock off $10 off the price, normally they won't care if it has a minor imperfection and you were honest with them. It normally saves me a bunch of money because I don't have to replace the piece and do the labor again. It's a win win.

3) Buy a new piece of material and just chalk it up to an error.

4) Engrave something on top of the extra bits to cover it up. Most of the time it is impossible/impractical, but sometimes it works out.

I would suggest that you buy a few sheets of brass coated steel from your local trophy supply warehouse. I often will run logos/artwork on a piece of steel before running the job. It only costs $5/sheet when you buy quantity and I can use the same piece of scrap several times before it goes in the trash. I can't tell you how many times this has saved me from making mistakes that could have cost me hundreds.

[Dan Hintz]

Ross,

I run tests on painter's tape... probably cheaper than the steel... maybe...

[paul mott]

I run tests on painter's tape... probably cheaper than the steel... maybe...

How wide do you buy your masking tape Dan ?

Paul.

[Dan Hintz]

I have a 1" and a 3" roll at the moment... if I need something larger I use vinyl transfer tape, but that doesn't show a burn nearly as well. The blue tape turns a nice white/light blue color with a light burn, and resolution is plenty high for checking work location (I'd estimate it in the 250-300dpi range, not a lot more due to the crepe paper texture).

[Ross Moshinsky]

Ross,

I run tests on painter's tape... probably cheaper than the steel... maybe...

Steel is free essentially. Like I said, it's scrap.

[Bruce Clumpner]

I've had this problem before within the margin of an image. You just can't seem to see it on the screen. If using photoshop, expand the canvas a few pixels to check if you have any artifacts left in this area from your clean-up.

[Bill Cunningham]

Transfer tape works well if you wipe on some black liquid shoe polish (dollar store type), or Black Turtle wax color cure car polish, which also works great for adding black to a wood engraving. It won't stick to a smooth finished surface, and wipes right off the unengraved wood .. I usually use this on transfer tape on granite to check the position and photo look before etching for real..Just pour on a bit, and smear it around with a rag or paper towel