How To Remove The Engraving On Slate Coasters
Slate coasters are popular gifts because they can be engraved with a personal or promotional message. But what if you want to remove the engraving on slate coasters?
I can help with that.
Our family recently completed a “fun” run together. If you have to put “fun” in the title of the event then it probably isn’t fun, but I digress.
For completing the fun run we each received a promotional slate coaster with the name of the fun run engraved into the slate.
I now had a set of 4 fun run slate coasters. They were a cool promotional gift, but not something I’d want to use in my home with that particular engraving on them. Also, I stared at the tree logo on the slate coasters for so long that it started to look like an alien head to me. It had to go.
From what I can tell, slate coasters are typically laser engraved. You should be able to feel the ever-so-slight ridges around the design with your fingers.
It dawned on me that slate is kind of soft as far as rocks go. Perhaps brittle is a better descriptive word. Adjectives aside, I wondered if I could remove the engraving on the slate coasters.
This was when the lightbulb moment occurred and the unsung hero of the DIY world finally got its moment in the spotlight.
Who is this unsung hero? Sandpaper.
Basically, if you can sand the top layer of the slate coaster off, you should be able to remove the engraving.
I hand-sanded each coaster with 100-grit sandpaper. It took 3 or 4 minutes to remove this particular engraving.
100-grit is the sandpaper that I had on hand. I don’t think you need to use that specific grit. However, it would be much more tedious with a super fine, smooth grit sandpaper, especially if you go the hand sanding route as I did as opposed to trying to use your electric sander.
The wildcard in this DIY is that engraved slate coasters can come sealed or unsealed. I don’t know if these particular coasters were sealed or not. Either way, you should be able to sand them down. It just might be more work if they were sealed.
When you’ve sanded the engraving off the slate coaster, rinse it clean with water and then dry.
If the slate looks too light grey to you at that point, you can rub some vegetable or olive oil on them to darken them up. Alternatively, I suppose you could apply a clear sealer to them if you wanted.
As a side note, don’t be like me and stand over your kitchen garbage because you got a wild hair to see if you really can sand the engraving off of a slate coaster. I’m sure it’s bad to breathe slate dust, so I’d wear a mask and work in a well-ventilated area if you attempt this DIY.
Don’t these slate coasters look fantastic now? I’m so happy with how they turned out!
They look understated and classy to me now, not something I got because I stumbled over the finish line of a not-so-fun run.
How do you feel about slate coasters? How about fun runs? Are they fun? I’d love to hear about it. You can always comment on this blog post (I have to approve it first before it appears), email me here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.
P.S. My husband absolutely thinks all running is fun. We agree to disagree on this topic.
P.P.S. Round slate coasters are pretty inexpensive on Amazon. $20 for a 12-pack. That’s a lot cheaper than paying the entry fee for a fun run. Plus, no sanding is required. Ha!
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One Comment
Lower Receiver Engraving
Hello Annisa! Thank you for sharing this informative article. Removing engraving can be tough at times, especially when done deeply, however the solutions you have provided are effective and simple which allow us to reuse the product.