Tip for reading headstones.

[merrick7]

Hi all,
         Little secret i'll share with everyone. Purchase men's shaving foam and a window squeegee. Apply a hand-full of shaving foam all over the headstone and clean down the headstone as if cleaning a window. The shaving foam will stay in the inscription and it will look like as if the headstone was freshly painted. You can then copy or photograph perfectly. When finished, wash the headstone with clean water. This will work on any old headstone. You will be surprised with the results.
         Happy shaving.

[Viktoria]

Will the foam not have any effect on the stone, ? and some we have been transcribing at Manchester General Cemetery were quite unstabe in as much as the surfaces were spalling and flaking.                                                                                                                                             Would pulling a squeegee across not damage such stones even more?
I have no idea but can see it may be a possibility. Viktoria.

[esdel]

Watch out someone (busy body!) does not say you are killing lichen (protected species in UK)
Take a strong light and illuminate parallel to the surface.
Better still be very patient and wait for the sun to do it for you!
Or shade the sun and illuminate with your flashlight.

A water spray would do less harm than rain - and might help a bit.

esdel

[shemit]

Hi,
Sounds like a good idea but surely you would need permission to do it & the foam or the squeegee itself may well cause damage. How on earth did you first have the idea to try it? Do you get strange looks from people when doing it?
sheila

[Guy Etchells]

Shaving foam will cause damage to gravestones and cannot be removed by washing.

Yes the foam washes off but the surfactants (the substance in shaving foam designed to lower the surface tension) allows the oils in the shaving foam (used as lubricants) to penetrate more easily into the porous stone.

The damage to the stone may not appear for months after the shaving foam has been applied. Rain falls on the stone the surfactants that have penetrated the surface allow the rain to penetrate also. Then all it takes is a sharp frost and great lumps of inscription spall from the stone.

Of course the person who has sprayed the stone with shaving foam does not see this effect as they have moved on to pastures new blithely unaware of the damage their actions can cause.
Cheers
Guy

[merrick7]

thanks for advice guy do you know of a more friendly substance that could be used

[esdel]

Watch out someone (busy body!) does not say you are killing lichen (protected species in UK)
Take a strong light and illuminate parallel to the surface.
Better still be very patient and wait for the sun to do it for you!
Or shade the sun and illuminate with your flashlight.

A water spray would do less harm than rain - and might help a bit.

esdel

Best idea - I forgot - is
Take a mirror and use it to direct the sunlight tangential to the stone while you stand so your shadow falls on the stone.

esdel

[Guy Etchells]

The least damaging (no damage) techniques are to use light to cast shadows.
This may be achieved by photographing stones in spring or autumn when the sun is low in the sky and naturally casts shadow.
Avoid bright summers days when the light is so bright the contrast between the inscription and the surface is low.

Try to visit the churchyard at a time the sun is at an angle to the stone rather than directly in front of it.

The use of a mirror or even a travel rug and torch have been used in extreme cases.

If lead letters have been used (and fallen out) the position of the fixing holes may be used to “read” the inscription.
I painstaking did this on a war memorial which had about 90% of the letters missing and added the inscription to my website. I was pleasantly surprised when a priest sent me a transcription made years previously when most of the letters were in place and I found very few I had made very few mistakes.
Cheers
Guy

[pinot]

Take a strong light and illuminate parallel to the surface.
esdel

Best idea - I forgot - is
Take a mirror and use it to direct the sunlight tangential to the stone while you stand so your shadow falls on the stone.

esdel

Lighter, less breakable and much bigger than a mirror is a sheet of expanded polystyrene, such as  some of us keep for months (or years  ) after buying a telly or fridge etc
                                 Pinot