Many uses for SLATE

When the average person thinks about Slate they would probably think of it as being synonymous with slate roofing or maybe even paving. However, over time, slate has been used for a myriad of different things.

Slate has been found to be an excellent electrical insulator as well as being fireproof. As a result of this it has been used for constructing early-20th century electric switchboards and relay controls for large electric motors.

Because of its thermal stability and chemical inertness, slate has often been used for laboratory bench tops and for billiard table tops. Coincidently, these are partly the same reasons that it makes such a good Slate House Sign. Long lasting, inert and stable.

In 18th- and 19th-century schools, slate was widely used for blackboards and personal writing slates on which slate or chalk pencils were used.

Slate was used by the ancient Maya civilization to fashion stelae. (These are monuments that were created by the Maya civilization of earliest Mesoamerica. They are made up of tall-sculpted stone shafts and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as alters). A far cry from the humble Slate House Sign.

Slate is an ideal gardening partner as it is resistant to weather, everyday pollutants and freeze-thaw action, so by using it as ground cover it can help to make sure that one has a beautiful garden all year round. These self-same characteristics also ensure that your Slate is unaffected by weather, pollutants and freeze-thaw actions, very necessary for any long-lasting home enhancement. In fact, many slate roof tiles have lasted for well over one hundred years!

Fine slate can also be used as a whetstone to sharpen knives and tools.

If you add all of these uses for slate to the usual ones, then you find that, not only is it a very attractive product, it is also a long lasting, practical and highly diverse natural product that would imbue any bodies home with grace and grandeur.