I had a copy of that book from the library, and it was my inspiration do do a slate sundial. I used unpolished slate so the surface was quite flat, but had a slight grain. I found that the instructions from the book using a hammer and sculptor's chisel or burin, or whatever the sculptors call it, (I found a small one in an art supply shop) didn't work very well for me because the stone would chip slightly rather than letting me etch the smooth edged V-profiled lines I wanted. I ended up using a scribing technique, drawing a sharpened steel tool toward me, for the most part using a straightedge to guide it, but with some freehand for Roman numerals.
To set out the numeral outlines, I did a computer using with capital I's and V's onto a peice of heavy paper or really light cardboard, cut out the centers with a razor blade and used the resulting stencils to mark the mumerals onto the slate with a white-ink pen. I scribed them out with a straightedge for lines and some freehand for the seriphs of the letters. It was a little tedious, but didn't really take that long. At 12:42 AM 12/25/98 +0000, you wrote: >>Subject: "Letters Slate Cut" and slate sundials. >>Sent: 24/12/98 3:14 pm >>Received: 25/12/98 12:13 am >>From: Chuck O'Connell, [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>To: Sundial Mailing List, [email protected] >> >>Hello All, >> >>Someone was kind enough to point out the book >> 'Letter Slate Cut". I got a copy of it. Nice book! > >Re this, > >If anyone else is interested it's by David Kindersley and Lida Lopes >Cardozo >published by Cardozo Kindersley Editions, Cambridge >ISBN 0 9501946 7 0 > >There aren't any sundial examples in my copy! > >Tony Moss > >
