Vegas Rock: Natural In The Desert

   What makes the stone – dubbed meta-quartzite – unique is its composition: 99-percent pure silica granules bound together by quartz. The quartz gives it a hardness of 6.2 to 6.7, and the ability to be polished.
   Geologists who’ve studied the deposit believe there’s nothing quite like it, and each fabricated product is essentially a one-of-a-kind slab or tile that can’t easily be reproduced as to color, pattern or internal fabric.
   “Tiles and slabs with more or less the same colors can be produced from blocks of stone, but the internal pattern and color distribution are different in most every piece,” says Dan Rhoades, director of Las Vegas-based Las Vegas Rock, parent company of the operation.
   “The artistic quality of the stone makes it important for architectural applications that require exclusivity and non-reproducible stonework of pleasing color variation and pattern.”
   Las Vegas Rock has 320 acres in patented land and more than 600 additional acres in approved-but-unpatented mining claims at the site.
   Las Vegas Rock began developing the meta-quartzite deposits in 1991. However, Rhoades says that, beginning at the turn of the last century, small-time miners would head out from Las Vegas to pull out flagstones and boulders for decorative purposes.
   “We’re the first ones who went in with heavy equipment and started mining,” Rhoades says. “The two owners of the company and the person who held the mining claims on the land would go out there to get away from Las Vegas and they came up with the idea they should start loading boulders and selling, ‘rocks in the desert,’ which was the term they used.
   “They started loading the really nice ones – the multi-colored ones and those with swirls – and it just took off from there.”
   The excavation is known as the Rainbow Quarries, and with good reason. The main 50-acre quarry and several satellites produce stone in a range of colors, including pink, rainbow, rainbow gold, burgundy and peaches-and-cream.
   “Our color range is very broad,” says Rhoades. “The veins we mine are constantly changing.”
   Las Vegas Rock has two subsidiaries to market its various products, Aquarius Stone Products and Nevada Stone. The latter handles the polished, specialty stone (signage) and structural stone.
   Developing the deposit to its fullest potential remains a work in progress. Rhoades explains that originally the company was focusing on selling boulders, ashlars, flagstones and crushed materials. The operation has its own crushing and bagging equipment.
   “A lot of what most quarries view as waste product, we’re processing into products, and that’s where we generate a lot of our sales,” he explains.
   Those products include tumbled pavers, thin veneers and decorative gravel in sizes from ¼”-minus to 8”-minus in a variety of colors. Its Aquarius Soil is a crushed-for-planting medium that is approved for golf courses by the Professional Golfers Association (PGA).
   Until two years ago, Las Vegas Rock was cutting 10-20 ton blocks with its Pellegrini DF2000TOP vertical saws and then shipping them elsewhere to be cut and polished for tile and countertop material.
   One of the companies doing finishing for the operation was running Thibaut equipment, and in 2004 the firm added a Thibaut THS 1800 horizontal wire saw and a Thibaut T500 polisher to its plant in Jean.
   Rhoades says the company chose the Thibaut equipment both because of its newer, robotic technology, and its ability to cut horizontally, which is better for the meta-quartzite than cutting vertically. Both machines are fully automated, as is the Thibault CNC Las Vegas Rock also purchased.
   The meta-quartzite – because of its durability – has proven itself as a good countertop material, Rhoades adds, once it’s been sealed.
   “We have some that have been in use for seven or eight years, and there’s no wear on them,” he says. “It doesn’t chip or scratch easily or have any adverse impacts from acids. It somebody spills wine or cuts a lemon on it, it has no effect.”
   Among the commercial applications for Las Vegas Rock for is an establishment in Pinetop, Ariz., including a 40’ bar and all the tables.
   “They love it, and they’ve had no problems,” says Rhoades.
   Recently, Las Vegas Rock supplied stone locally for a project at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and the just-completed Red Rock Casino.
   “For the casino, we provided all the exterior stone for the water fountains,” says Rhoades. “We also have slabs in the elevator lobbies and the VIP lounge.”
   Because of the close proximity of the quarry to the factory, the company ensures a reliable and timely delivery of the finished product.
   “We’ve been taking on a lot of block orders for other projects, but we expect to start cutting more raw material blocks with our Thibauts, so production will be going up, as the market dictates,” says Rhoades. “If we can supply the saw with enough good, fracture-free material, it has the capability of cutting upwards of 30,000 ft² a month.
   “We are a specialty stone facility,” he emphasizes.
   Amazingly, the company has grown to its present size – including 40 employees – without any major marketing effort.
   “We have a Website,” he says. “Other than that, it’s all basically through word-of-mouth from our current customers. We have some fabricators in Phoenix and California, and there are architects and designers who know our stone.”
   Anticipating further growth, Rhoades says the company is already thinking about adding more equipment, although at present there is no timetable for making the move.
   “We have a lot of reserves and room for expansion,” he says. “Right now, we’re outsourcing our floor-tile production, and how well they can keep up with the demand will dictate the timeframe for getting more equipment.”
   While agreeing that keeping quarry production at levels to supply all Las Vegas Rock’s product needs is a real balancing act, Rhoades says he sees the company focusing in coming months on getting its slab production up, and boosting some of its other products, including its ashlar material and tumbled pavers, as well as its bagged crushed-stone products.
   “If we can get our stone in front of more architects and designers, that’s where we want to be,” he concludes. “We see our stone as being for higher-end projects because it is one-of-a-kind. Rather than being a high production operation, we want to be an exclusive in designer homes and projects. That’s our real goal. Our stone has been and is being specified as ‘Rock Art.’”

This article first appeared in the September 2006 edition of Stone Business. ©2006 Western Business Media Inc.