Setting Things Straight

December 5, 2008

Anyone associated with the restoration end of the business will realize that our initial dollar layout to get into the business is a considerable amount less than your average fabricator. And as such, the precision tools aren’t yet at the same caliber as those of our fabricating brothers and sisters in stone.

McNall

   Instead of having laser-guided, bolted-to-the-floor one-ton behemoths with a payment similar to a corporate Lear Jet, we have machines that weigh between 150-400 lbs., running on 110V-220V and guided not by lasers, but by the forearms of your local help. Considering that these lightweight machines aren’t bolted down, but rather float across the multi-leveled planes of your average lippage-mined floor, it’s a little tricky to rock a rhyme and right on time (if you follow my reference to Run DMC).
   Considering how these machines will jump either left or right with no notice in the blink of an eye, blending in and/or keeping your work area neat and pretty takes some forethought.
   The first rule when it comes to riding with Tommy here is this: Those who runs the floor machine, and cannot blend in properly, will be blending in by hand later on their knees. This backbreaking way of making our technicians sleep in the bed that they made ensures a quick learning experience in having our people do the job right.
   If you’re a seasoned pro, you can blend a floor in by eye, but hey – John Wayne is dead and being a cowboy just doesn't ensure that your bills are paid anymore (sorry Dad). Even this saddle-sore prairie-riding wannabe will resort to some sort of training wheels to keep his machine from falling off the edges.
   I've investigated many methods to make sure our techs blend in properly over the years, and I still can't beat the good old-fashioned lumber crayon; simple, yet effective. And if I’m working in a house with kids, they really get a kick out of a grown man drawing on their floors with a crayon. One even told me that his mother would tan my hide for coloring on the floor.
   When I started in the business, someone suggested using a couple of 2 X 4s as guide markers. I call these the real stone-restoration tech's training wheels. The idea is that you start out with the two lengths of wood sitting side-by-side, both on the wide edges, against the wall, giving you a 1.5”-high X 7” (the width of the two 3.5” boards placed together) of spacer to guide your machine for your first cut.
   On your second cut, you stand the inside length on its shorter width (1.5”) giving you a 5” spacer from the wall to run along. On the third cut, you stand the second board on the narrow end, giving you 3” from the wall, on the fourth cut, you remove one of the two boards, leaving a 1.5” spacer. Then you remove the last board on your fifth cut to run flush against the wall.
   Believe me – this training-wheel method will give you the straightest lines possible to blend in.
   One problem that occurs with this method involves grit math; in a leveling job (or grind), you start with 100 metal, than go to 50-grit resin, followed by 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500 and 3000 grits. By 400 grit, you’re against the wall.
   If you’re working on marble and you’re a step skipper (meaning you skip 200 grit), you could be against the wall by 800 grit. That’s OK, but what if you’re working on granite or travertine? With those stones, you should be using more metal-bond diamonds and have more steps to go through.
   Also, my technicians will be charged with cleaning my vehicle and organizing the shop if I catch them skipping steps. Yes, I know you can skip steps, and more power to you. But call me old-fashioned; I like our people to follow the steps and do the job right. Skipping steps is best left to a Seinfeld episode that sees George go nuts.
   Another problem with the walking the 2 X 4 plank (or planks, if you’re getting picky with grammar) is that you have extra tools to store, ship, and care for on the job. Also, these wooden markers won’t conform around curves or straight angles, or fit into tight areas (unless you carry various lengths – which means more inventory).
   The 2 X 4s tend not to anchor to stone too well and – I don't know if you know this or not – but wood floats, swells and feeds mold. For these reasons, I call them training wheels; after some experience, it’s time to act like a Big Person and start using a crayon for blending in.
   Yes, there’s a grown man drawing on the floor with crayon, and it looks crude – but it works. You don’t need to stop and adjust every four to five feet. You can adjust your blending-in width based on the job, the stone and how far you are going with grits. Storing various lengths of lumber doesn’t become a problem. And the kids in the house think you are a rebel – and how cool is that?
   Seriously though … that wax line from the crayon is only a guideline. It’s there to attempt to keep the uncontrollable – as in the machine you’re wrestling around the floor – a little more controllable.
   Consider the yellow lines on roads and streets. It's not like they physically force you to drive straight, but they keep most of us on the right (literally, in North America) side of the road.
   Here’s a little advice when it comes to color choice of crayons: red for light-colored stone, and yellow for the darker varieties. And lumber crayons are the best; a china crayon/marker also works well too, but the mark might stay on grout.
Until next time, keep your stick on the ice and your floor machines inside the lines.
   Tom McNall is founder and owner of Great Northern Stone Care, a Huron Park, Ontario-based stone-cleaning and -restoration company servicing all of southern Ontario. Tom offers corporate and private consultations, serves as a trainer for the Marble Institute of America, and is also on the organization’s board of directors. He can be reached at stone_rx@earthlink.net.