So a little over a month after the first, I attended the Odlings site to inspect the granite pieces prior to them making delivery. The purpose of the visit was to check the quality of the items before they arrived at my house. I had also agreed with Lee, that they would drill some holes for me in the Y side pieces so i used the visit to mark-up the slabs so they could be drilled on site. These were holes to accomdate four M22 Bolts on each side of the granite bed. On arrival, the three chunks of granite had been laid out palletised ready for me to inspect and markup.

The processing of granite for headstones is very labourous and expensive. It is the final levels of polishing that contribute to the majority of the cost. I agreed with Odlings that i did not require the mirror finish on all surfaces, but i requested that they complete all the grinding processes upto, but not including the final process. This meant that there was no saw teeth marks in the granite faces, and that the pre-calibrated grinding tool gave me parallel and square edges.This would leave me with two faces of the Y axis sides that I would need to grind and lap until they matched in Z height and squareness.

I can't remember now if these were M20 or M22, but these are the bolts and inserts that I was planning to use to bolt the sides of granite to the base.

They are whats called internally threaded sockets and have a knurl type texture on the outside for better chemical adhesion. Odlings have asmentioned pre-drilled the holes in the sides for me, but I would be required to drill the holes in the base for the sockets to be glued in. I will share much more information about these cokets and the choice of cement i used in dedicated articles later on in the build story...