Ordering a companion stone? What to check on the proof before it goes to the sandblaster

The proof arrives as a PDF, usually one page, usually with the stone drawn to scale and the lettering set inside a faint rectangle that marks the polished panel. It looks finished, which is the problem. Once a rubber stencil is cut and the blast pot is running, changes stop being edits and start being a new stone, and the shop will tell you so politely. Everything worth arguing about is visible on that page, if you know which four or five things to compare against each other rather than simply read.

Reading the proof as a layout, not as a sentence

Read it twice, in two different ways. The first pass is for content: spelling of the given name, the middle initial or the full middle name, the maiden name, the years, the nickname in quotation marks if that is what the family agreed. The second pass is purely geometric, and it is the one people skip. Look at where the vertical centerline of the text falls against the vertical centerline of the stone, how much blank granite sits above the first line and below the last, and whether the margins left and right are actually equal or merely close.

A single-name upright stone centered on its own face is the easy case. A companion stone, meaning one marker intended to carry two names, is where centering becomes a decision with consequences. If the shop centers the first name on the whole panel because that is what looks balanced today, the second name later goes wherever it fits, which is usually low and slightly off. Ask instead for the panel to be divided now, in the drawing, with the surname across the top and two equal halves beneath it.

Deep cut against shallow etch

Sandblasted lettering on granite is cut to a depth the shop chooses, and the choice is not cosmetic. A shallow cut, the kind that reads crisply on a fresh polish, relies on paint or on the contrast between polished and frosted surfaces to be legible at all. A deeper V-sunk or square-sunk letter holds a shadow, so it stays readable when the paint has gone and the polish has dulled, which on an exposed hilltop plot is a matter of decades rather than centuries. Ask the depth in fractions of an inch, and ask what the shop's standard is before you ask for more.

Laser etching is the other pole. It lives on the surface, produces fine tonal detail impossible to sandblast, and is superb for a portrait or a landscape scene on black granite. It is also the least durable mark on the stone, vulnerable to abrasion and to the freeze-thaw cycle working on the polished skin. The sensible split, and the one most monument shops will suggest without being pushed, is names and dates cut deep, decorative artwork etched.

Dates, and the convention you have to pick once

Full dates or years only. Both are defensible, and the comparison is worth making out loud before you sign. Years alone (1938 to 2024) are compact, forgiving of a later addition, and never look wrong beside a second name added twenty years on. Full dates carry more information for anyone researching the family later, but they eat two or three times the horizontal space and force smaller letters. What matters more than the choice is consistency: if the first name gets a full date, the second must too, and the numerals should match in style, spacing and the way the month is abbreviated.

Symbols, and the space they quietly consume

A cross, a rose, a Star of David, a set of praying hands, a military emblem: each occupies real estate that cannot be reclaimed. Placed in the top center of a companion stone, a symbol pushes the surname down and squeezes both name panels. Placed at the outer top corners, one per side, it leaves the center free and gives each name its own mark. Corner symbols also survive the later addition intact, because the stencil work happens in a panel nobody has to reopen.

The second inscription, priced in advance

Cutting a date on a stone already standing in the cemetery is done on site, by hand or with a portable blaster, and it is a different job from shop work. Ask for the estimated cost in writing now, ask whether the shop guarantees a match to the original lettering style, and confirm that the cemetery permits on-site work at all. The Federal Trade Commission oversees disclosure practices in funeral goods and services, and a shop used to that standard will put the future charge in the contract without being asked twice.

Print the proof at full size if the shop will supply it that way, tape it to a wall, and stand back ten feet. Errors that hide at screen scale become obvious at reading distance, which is the only distance that ever matters.