The owner of Set in Stone would never have started a stone engraving business if it weren’t for the ongoing softwood lumber dispute between Canada and the U.S.
“My family owned a logging business and the U.S. slapped a tariff on the lumber we produced,” Kevin Elliott recalls.
“My family left Alberta and returned to B.C. to begin quarrying rock. I also got into rock, but I decided that if people were going to buy rocks they would be more likely to buy rocks with words engraved in them.”
Elliott had an affinity for art and had worked at a sign shop during his high school years. Newly married with a one-year-old baby he went all-in on the business, which launched in Calgary in 1999.
“I had a $500 credit card and bought a sand blaster,” he says.
“My neighbour had an old air compressor powered by a Chrysler Slant 6 engine that you could tow behind a vehicle. I cleaned the points and changed the rotor and the thing fired up. I did my homework and after some trial and error I was ready to go.”
Engraving rock with a sandblasting unit requires the use of rubber templates, which absorb some of the energy imparted by high-velocity sand. By moving the sandblaster nozzle back and forth across the template, stone is removed while the template is spared. He highlights the engraved areas using weather-resistant paint.
“When I started in the business, I would print out the templates and hand cut each of them,” says Elliott.
“More than a dozen years ago I was working on a project for a golf course and completed hand cut templates for all of the tee markers and yardage signs. I realized then that I didn’t want to hand cut another template. Instead, I bought a plotter that converts computer designs into ready-cut templates after I push the ‘send’ button.”
Elliott initially purchased stone hewn from his father’s B.C. quarry. He prefers working with argillite, a fine-grained sedimentary rock. He used to hand-select rock from his current supplier, but the quarry now knows what to look for — flat-faced rocks with a mountain-like profile. A smooth, flat face allows the engraved letters to “read true and clean.”
The business is seasonal. He works with an employee or apprentice during the summer, and largely alone during winters.
After almost 30 years in the business, he’s worked on almost every sort of engraved rock project imaginable, from tiny pet memorials, to address engravings, entrance signs at housing developments and business signage. He’ll work remotely, or complete the work at his facility, delivering stone engravings weighing as much as 24 tonnes to client addresses, with the help of a crane truck.
One of his most challenging projects involved engraving the rock entrance sign at Fred Henne Territorial Park near Yellowknife in 2011. It wasn’t so much the job itself, but the distance involved.
“I was flown up with my template and paint, but I had to rent unproven equipment that I’d never worked with,” he says.
“I knew that if the template messed up, I wouldn’t be able to produce another one. I bought every bag of sand available in Yellowknife that day, so I knew there would be no margin for error. I’m happy to say that the job was a success.”
Elliott recently purchased a diamond-toothed dragsaw to shape and create engraved stones for clients, that will commemorate the properties on which they’re found.
“A lot of stone memorials are currently imported,” he says.
“That doesn’t seem right to me when you could choose a rock from Canadian soil. When people select a rock to bring to me, it comes with a personal story. They remember the details of choosing the rock, who was with them, whether it was raining that day and all sorts of other details. Rocks have their own personality, but for these projects, the client’s story becomes part of it.”
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