Sorry for the delay. Well, everything turned out great - thanks again for the great advice! Attached are pictures. I got the fine point sharpie at Home Depot (they always have them) as well as the razor blades. The nail polish I got at the supermarket. Total of about $7 or less. I was unable to get very close pics of me doing the actual work such as filling it in, etc. (the pics were all blurry) so I'll be as descriptive as possible.
You can see the ding in the original post as well as this pic:
Tools purchased:
I prepped the area by wiping it down with a damp paper towel and letting it dry completely. I then used the sharpie to dot the ding and fill it in. Once I dotted an area, I generally didn't go back over it. The ink kind of soaked in a little. I wiped any excess ink off with a quick wipe of a dry paper towel. I let this dry for about 15/20 min. and then I applied the nail polish:
The picture of the amount of nail polish here is a bit excessive for the size of the ding. It appeared that the polish was also pulling out the ink and it became a big black blob. At this point I bugged out and wiped off the polish.
Everything was fine though and I retouched a dot or two. I then let the ink dry for an hour just to make absolutely sure. Probably overkill, but whatever.
I then reapplied the polish. Tips for the polish: pull the brush out and wipe off the excess on the inside lip of the bottle. Then use the corner of the brush to dot it on. You get much more control over the amount of polish applied in this manner. I then used the first razorblade to reduce the amount of polish to leave just a very small amount of polish rising over the countertop when looked at at tabletop level. Tips on using the razor blade: you can use the corner of the blade to dip into the polish and essentially lift out some of the polish. Holding the blade perpendicular to the tabletop and lifted just ever so slightly from the tabletop you can essentially "zambonie" or push the polish off the top. I then used a dry paper towel to wipe up any excess around the area that didn't need any polish. It still looked like the polish was diluting the ink, but I left it alone and let it dry for a few hours while I did yard work.
I came back and shaved the polish off with the second razor. I did this by holding the blade on about a 20 degree angle to the tabletop and ran it along the stone, shaving the dried polish off. this brought the polish flush with the tabletop and the results looked great. I didn't even bother to use the nail buffer. Pic below of the finished work. The key is pointing to the spot that was fixed. Without something actually pointing it out or taking time to stop and look for where the ding was, you never notice it (and unfortunately, I'm the kind of guy that notices little things like that). All in all great advice Huligar - I can't thank you enough!!! It's like having a few hundred bucks put right back in my pocket!
