At Emerson Monument Company, we know how important it is to select the best lettering style for your memorial. Afterall, you want the monument to be viewed with ease for decades to come!
Skinning letters into stone is a beautiful engraving process we use when the stone itself has a great deal of natural contrast. It is the process of lightly removing the polished surface to expose the natural, untouched surface below.
Doing this allows the engraved letters to show up beautifully without the addition of paints that will fade over time.
See the examples below to better understand.
Poorly Skinned in Letters
We ran across this memorial in a local cemetery.
Whoever made this monument (and it was not us!) utilized skinned-in letters on Ebony Mist granite. The problem here is that Ebony Mist granite does not have enough contrast for skinned in letters. However, the monument maker did it anyway. And then, to hide their poor selection, they filled the letters with white paint.
As you see in the photo, the white paint is slowly fading and the letters are too. The letters will be lost once the paint completely fades.
Properly Skinned In Letters
This memorial was proudly made by Emerson Monument Company, and features beautifully skinned-in letters.
The memorial is made of Snowflake granite, which features a wonderfully bold contrast. There is absolutely no paint used in this memorial. That means the letters and design will always look just as beautifully and legible as they do in this photo.