Painting a gravestone.

[Rorschach]

My brothers gravestone is a few years old now and the lettering has lost nearly all of it's gold paint. It's a polished granite stone (the small type over a cremation urn) with engraved lettering. I was thinking about how best to re-paint it. Anyone know how it is done professionally?

My immediate thought was to scrub it with a fine wire brush, then scrub with a toothbrush and alcohol until it is nice and clean.
For paint I thought model enamel paint would be fairly durable and not too expensive, a single small pot will do the lot I am sure. As for application, rather than try and carefully paint each letter I thought about flooding the lettering (it's fairly horizontal so it shouldn't run), let it dry for a day or two and then go back with a razor blade and scrape off any excess.

Thoughts and advice much appreciated. Bear in mind, it does need to be done in situ.

[London mike 61]

How about a permanent gold coloured marker pen then go over it with varnish, that may last a few years. It seems to be the case that the headstones are made in a particular way so that they need ‘ professionally ‘ topped up at a cost every so often. At least that’s my take on it.

Mike

[Dave54]

I remember reading somewhere that gold leaf is the way to go for outside gold coloured work.
There's actually quite a bit here on the site if you search for "gold leaf"
https://bit.ly/2ymnwiz
Various alternative paints and so on as well.

[Rorschach]

Definitely no money in the budget for gold leaf!

[Job and Knock]

I remember reading somewhere that gold leaf is the way to go for outside gold coloured work.

It certainly is - with an expected life of 20 to 40 years if correctly applied (or a lot longer than paint). Two suppliers I'm aware of are Wrights of Lymm and Habberley-Meadows in Birmingham

[Rorschach]

I doubt the original was gold leaf considering it has lasted a lot less than 40 years. Also even if it was in the budget, I have to do this job in situ in a rather exposed cemetery on the side of a hill.

[dewaltdisney]

I think Humbrol (is it still called that) little gold paint tins would do it. As I recall with that paint you have to keep continually stirring it in use as the gold settles and the paint becomes dull as you go if not. Might be worth masking up a bit so you can really stipple it into the letters.

DWD

[boxedin]

Hello Rorschach if you haven't already seen it

This site supplies masonry stuff and they have gold enamel paint supplied by One Shot its signwriting enamel oil based if you shop around you can get cans as low as £10 plus carriage they do cans of a small size eg 110ml at wrights of Lymm and other types together with gilding kits
https://www.masonrysupplies.co.uk/
https://www.stonehouses.co.uk/signwriti ... d.html?p=2
Wrights of Lymm might be worth a call for advice

[Rorschach]

I think Humbrol (is it still called that) little gold paint tins would do it. As I recall with that paint you have to keep continually stirring it in use as the gold settles and the paint becomes dull as you go if not. Might be worth masking up a bit so you can really stipple it into the letters.

DWD

That was the first kind of thing that popped into my head, I used to paint models. Never left one outside though

Hello Rorschach if you haven't already seen it

This site supplies masonry stuff and they have gold enamel paint supplied by One Shot its signwriting enamel oil based if you shop around you can get cans as low as £10 plus carriage they do cans of a small size eg 110ml at wrights of Lymm and other types together with gilding kits
<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">https://www.masonrysupplies.co.uk</span>/
<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">https://www.stonehouses.co.uk/signwriti ... ?p=2</span>
Wrights of Lymm might be worth a call for advice

Thanks, I'll check them out.

[Job and Knock]

Agreed about One-Shot sign enamels. Didn't realise that they did metallics, but the solid colours last really well because they have a far higher pigment content than conventional paints

[Mrwilson]

I just had my great grandmothers stone done a couple of weeks ago and while the original lettering was in gold leaf, we had it re-done in plain black. It was a small light grey granite stone propped up on a wire frame so I got the stone mason to make a small matching granite base for it while he was at it.
The colour and type of stone has a bearing on what paint to use apparently, an "open" granite will let paint bleed into it making the edges untidy, so if the granite is flecked with black then black paint would be preferable to white for example.
I saw some other stones he was doing at the same time and the technique seems to be to work the paint well into the lettering, not being fussy about going over the edges then polishing the excess paint off the surface leaving the recessed letters coloured in if that makes sense?
All that said, he only charged me £80 for everything, which I thought was a pretty good deal. It might be worth asking around to see if a small local monumental mason would do the lettering for you as a "casher", you might be surprised and it would save you any stress and heartache if doing it yourself went a bit pear shaped?