Grow With The Flow
Once the piece arrangement on the slab is finalized, this information needs to be communicated to the sawyer or the guy programming the CNC or waterjet. With this in mind, I always make a complete CAD drawing of where I’d like each piece to be on the slab. The sawyer or programmer can then tweak my drawing to work with the reality of cutting out the pieces. And by tweak, I mean only making very small changes.
A good sawyer can make a world of difference when laying out countertop pieces on stone with flow, especially in matching up seams from slab to slab. The best sawyers will save the exact off-cut from a seam piece and use it to determine where the matching seam will be on the next piece. Done well, this process can make seams nearly invisible, even in busy stone.
Click photo to enlargeEven the installer’s job can be a little more difficult with flowing granite or marble. With multiple colors coming out of the stone at a seam, I often find it necessary to mix more than one color of adhesive as well.
It can be tricky to get the hardener mixed in, butter the seam sections with the right color, pull the seam together, and level the seam the first time you try with two colors. I suggest doing a practice seam first, maybe even with three colors. That will make a two-color seam look easy.
Stones with flow seem more popular than ever. Having a comprehensive system to deal with this type of stone from selection to installation, and sticking to it, can help your company produce some amazing, and profitable, countertops.
Jason Nottestad operated his own countertop templating/installation service for more than a decade. He now works for VT Industries. This article first appeared in the March 2007 print edition of Stone Business. Copyright ©2007 Western Business Media Inc.