In the late 1990s, I was asked by a high school friend to help install some kitchens for a granite shop that he managed. I owned a small home remodeling business that was slow at the time, and I was looking for some “busy work.” We spent the next month installing a few kitchens a day. The more I worked with granite, the more I was drawn to the allure of natural stone. I closed my home remodeling business and went to work for that granite shop full time. Over the next several years, I worked my way from installer to measure tech. I spent a few more years measuring and developing a templating system that we still use today. Meanwhile, my friend Matt, who had gotten me into the business, moved off to another company. This opened a position for me in the office doing bookkeeping and scheduling. Over the next few years, I worked my way to operations manager. The shop grew considerably, and at one point, we were producing 10 to 15 kitchens per day. With that type of volume, efficiency became an issue. Customers became numbers instead of names. We lost the ability to spend the quality time needed to produce a custom product.
In this issue of Stone World Magazine, our “Re-Emerging U.S. Stone Industry” subject is the Cold Spring Granite Co.’s Carnelian granite quarry, which is located in Milbank, SD (page 38). This quarry has made a name for itself by supplying material for prestigious projects across the country, perhaps most notably the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC, which utilized 6,000 tons of Carnelian granite. This fact alone entrenches Carnelian granite’s place among the historic materials of our nation.
The Supra Auto Cut gantry saw by Matrix Stone Products was engineered to offer high-level automation and shop floor simplicity, combined into one very powerful package. Whether a business is high-end custom fabrication or repetitive dimensional cutting for commercial projects, the Supra has been designed to deliver. Supra is designed on the field-proven Matrix Sebring platform and incorporates all of the performance features of this gantry saw.
The Denver Job is a 3-axis CNC fully automated router and polisher from VIC International. Small in size but big in performance, the Job’s open gantry structure with side apertures allows positioning of large slabs for complete cutting out, profiling and polishing of sinks, drainboards and water supply holes on any size countertop. Recessed and inclined surfaces as well as flush-mounted sinks and shower bases can be created on the Job.
I have received numerous calls lately concerning the fading of dark granite countertops. The most common complaints seem to be on Absolute Black, Black Galaxy, Zimbabwe Black and a few others. I have heard many fabricators try to blame the fading on the misuse of cleaning chemicals, acids, etc. While one should not use inappropriate chemicals on granite surfaces, this is often not the reason for the increase in black granite fading.
Q: What is the REAL situation out there for stone fabricators? I visit some shops that tell me they’re as busy as can be, and yet there seems to be very little work going on. Others tell me they’re “dead,” and the shop seems to be bustling. I guess this is a two-part question:
OK, I finally admit it, the stone fabrication market is down. It is not “perceived to be down,” as I have repeatedly argued with my publisher; it is not “up and down.” It is simply “down.” Now, with that being said, the question I have is how far down, and how is this downward trend truly affecting fabricators in the marketplace? Are many shops in dire straits? How many layoffs are taking place? Is anyone buying machinery these days?
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