Bad picture, could it be Saint Mark limestone?

I know and understand your point. But personally I would rather have the stone fail then the seem fail. This may not be the case for everyone but I am not responsible for the engineering of the sub straight, surface , cabinets etc that our counters are installed over. If the stone fails because thin...

If you are doing 6 a day without a CNC I would say you are on the right path. I'd say keep eating the overtime (if you are still making money) or its time to take the next step. Imagine what you could do with a CNC!?

Daniel wrote:Wait, its not me is it?

Every job can have a different waste yield. I've had large jobs (100s of slabs) yield 40% waste because of the size of the required pieces and I have had other jobs yield next to 0%. We try to account for the job specs vs the material raw size at the time of pricing a job and factor in the waste % a...

Ask yourself these questions; If a seam lets go due to settling who is it easiest to point the finger at? If a rail breaks, but the seam holds, because of settling who is it easiest the point the finger at? I am in the stone business not the cabinet business, or home building business. If a rail bre...

Maybe where your at. They dont exist here. You can only hire green employees. x2 You have to be qualified to train people yourself in this industry. Its true there are some guys out there with lots of experience. But there is a problem attached to that. This industry has gone digital In a BIG way o...

Push start and go to lunch. Lunch is unpaid, its their time. I don't like guys to stagger lunch either. Let them get there "talking" out in the lunch room and not on the floor. Who wants to eat lunch alone anyway?

Dan R. wrote:We use Milwaukee electric grinders, variable speed

Dan what is the model number on your preferred Milwaukee? I have been wanting to try one and see if I can replace the new junk Makita's that we have been using.

Ask yourself this; what is your current bottle neck in fabrication? Focus on the solution/equipment that will help that. Then move on to your next bottle neck. We have a manual saw and a CNC. The manual saw has no problem keeping up to the CNC. Our CNC is currently our bottle neck (not a bad positio...

Steve, this was one of my thoughts as well but wouldn't the heat have cracked the stone right away and not 6 to 12 months later??? Not doubting you at all, but just thinking out loud... The epoxy could be like ice freezing in a glass bottle. The epoxy could be putting the stone under a lot of stres...

These are all from the same fabricator using the same products and likely the same technique? Purely speculation, but maybe the epoxy is being mixed wrong? Either the wrong combination of hardener to resin mix or maybe even over mixing? Mixing epoxy too much can cause it to flash prematurely and get...

I lost 2 co-workers about 8 years ago. They were in a terrible accident on their way into work. This will forever weigh heavily on my mind, especially when someone is running late and I haven't heard from them. I have no tolerance for no show with no call. You better have a damned good excuse when y...

Terry: All shop operations have to be evaluated for cost effectiveness. You are investing a half an hour and materials in lowering your risk for breaking tops. For the sake of figuring, let's say each top costs you $50.00 to rod. Let's say you invest $660.00 in two of the 8' Omni Sink Hole Savers a...

We have always done steel bars in our tops to help from breaking. I heard today that a lot of people are switching to the Fiberglass mesh instead. Just wondering if anyone prefers the fiberglass over the steel bars and how difficult is it to do. Thanks. p.s. I know I know become a member... working...

I would love in the members lounge.. I'm not a business owner however. At the end of the day I'm just a worker. I would prefer to have my presence here separate from the company I work for. I'll just put this out there... Maybe you guys could consider a reduced membership fee for those like me whom ...

Aim for 40 hours per week per worker. You own the business and its your baby/livelihood and would likely near kill yourself to keep in going, I totally get that. Just don't expect the same out of your employees. Everyone comes form a different walk of life and we need to find a median value to treat...

We stayed at a Hyatt House hotel this weekend where the front desk was 2cm thick Calcutta marble mitered and laminated for the apron. It was horrendous. Seams and joints were 1/8" with bright white epoxy everywhere. Amazing what gets accepted by some contractors. Im sure they wanted it fast and che...

Mark Smith wrote:Steve, that grinder is not discontinued in the U.S. Everyone here still stocks it

Thats it I'm moving!

A Makita variable speed has always been my go to tool, specifically the 9565cv. I missed it but at some point it was phased out and the replacement is the GA5042C. In less then a year I've had a 20% fail rate on a lot of these I bought, mean while my old 9565s keep going (6 years or more for most of...

I have always felt this stone is classified wrong. This stone is closer to a marble then anything else. I don't think there is much to be done about the etching in terms of using a sealer. I could be wrong, others may have comment. I think the best practice is to treat in like a marble in terms of d...

Look at this guys work - http://livingstonessculptures.ca/ I ran into this man a couple years ago at a road side market. He scours farmers fence-rows and road cuts for boulders. He has an eye for odd stones. He has incredible talent. All hand cut and carved. Some of his bowls are as little as 1/4 th...

Such accident can be avoided if the employee had proper training driving forklift. This is why forklift license is important to avoid any accident. This is proof that the operator received sufficient knowledge, oriented about safety driving the forklift, and followed OSHA rules and regulations. If ...

Can someone explain the issue with lifting 2 slabs? Is this only an issue with 3cm material? If so I completely agree, 1 slab at a time. I would in fact disagree if the same is reasoned for 2cm material. I think this issue is not as one sided as most may feel. Hear me out please. First and foremost ...

Had the same thing happen a couple years ago on a similar material, first and last time working with the material. We ended up scrapping the kitchen and talking the client into another material. We tried a lot of stuff to make it work, CNC polish, hand polish, epoxy the edges, penetrating epoxy on t...