The quarries for slate (ardesia in Italian) operate underground, and the extraction sites tunnel directly into the mountainside. Large-scale Fantini chainsaws are used to make cuts in the quarry face, and the front loaders are used to pull blocks from the quarry. The shape and size of the block depends on the natural layers of the stone deposit. The larger blocks are around 8 x 5 x 5 feet in size, while the smaller blocks (primarily used for roofing slate) are around 6.5 x 3 ½ feet in size, with varying thicknesses.
Following the classic tradition of slate processing, tiles are split by hand. This process relies heavily on the experience and skill of the worker, who finds the natural split in the stone before striking it with a hammer and chisel. Tile sizes include 1 x 1, 1 x 2 and 1 x 3 feet, among other dimensions.