BUCYRUS – Tim Daniel is a master at making memories.
He’s the granite guru, the guy who specializes in engraving images on tombstones. Intricate laser etchings and custom designs that he creates in his one-man shop at 229 River Street – Designer Memorials LLC.
“It’s just the laser empowering and exploding the surface of the granite,” said Daniel, who opened his storefront business in February. “Black granite comes in polished. It’s really just removing that layer of polish to create the image on the granite itself.”
Daniel, 61, works with families who have lost loved ones to come up with the headstone design, then makes up a proof for them to review. He has personalized cemetery markers with everything from wedding portraits and scenes to a 1957 Chevy for an antique car buff.
The etchings, he said, are done with a CNC machine and two industrial lasers set up in the back of the 4,000-square-foot building, which also showcases a sampling of his handiwork. “Everything is pretty much custom. It’s kind of a working shop but I also have a dedicated display area in the shop.”
Daniel, who moved to the Bucyrus area from Columbus three years ago, has worked in both the construction and home remodeling industries. He also managed a marble and tile shop in Columbus before buying his first laser in 2002 and opening Image Tech Studios.
He was at the Columbus Home and Garden Show one spring promoting Image Tech’s one-of-a-kind designs on kitchen backsplashes and tile floor inlays when he was approached by a monument maker about his work. Daniel said it was then that he made the move to gravestone engraving.
Daniel said headstones require a special paint, which he carefully – and artfully – airbrushes into the etchings. The color technique, he said, not only enhances the detail of the original black and white images but also gives them another more realistic dimension.
His artwork also decorates cremation urns, wall hangings, and awards. It can be found on 3/8-inch thick and larger decorative granite tiles, which he pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle to create the overall image, or on a continuous slab of stone up to eight feet long.
Daniel said he recently completed an engraving project for Lou Berliner Sports Park in Columbus and for a company in Richland County, which requested a four-by-six-foot plaque depicting the owner and the business to hang in the front lobby of the firm.
Some of his headstones, however, have found a home millions of miles away – shipped to clients he has never met in countries like Honduras, Hong Kong, and Japan. They have become permanent fixtures in foreign cemeteries. Reminders of a life lived and a life lost.
Because the “permanency” of his work is what makes Daniel tick. From the high-rises, he built years ago to the timeless tombstones of today. “Even if I’m doing it six or seven days a week, I enjoy it,” he said. “What I do is permanent. It will always be there.”
