When it comes to the reproduction of lots of masonry all the same – such as dentils or even ornate capitals – machines come into their own. And with the purchase of their Robostone, producing it is a service Stoneworld are offering to masonry companies.
Major investment in new saws and an HTM Robostone has opened up a whole raft of opportunities for Stoneworld, a company set up in 2001 by an agricultural rep after watching Ground Force on television.
The man behind the company is Rob Parker. What he saw being used on Ground Force was decorative gravel. When he saw it he thought: “I know where I can get that.” So, having been suitably impressed with the idea of getting £200 a tonne for gravel simply by putting it into 25kg bags, he did.
It was not so much his background selling fertiliser and seed that equipped him for the step into the stone industry as the move he had already made by then into haulage.
He found he could earn more by transporting fertiliser and seed for the companies supplying it than he could by selling it. Then, when foot & mouth hit in 2001, he made good money hauling carcasses for incineration.
When he saw Ground Force, he not only knew where he could get the gravel, he also had the transport to collect it. He invested in a bagging machine and put a sign by the roadside of his premises in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, saying “Gravel for sale”.
A year later he had branched out from gravel into paving. “I saw natural stone paving from India and China was becoming more common. Then it had less than 2% of the market – now it’s more than 50%.”
He found a source of sandstone paving in India on the internet that luckily turned out to be one of the better suppliers. He opened an outlet in Towcester in 2002 to sell the Indian paving and walling along with the gravel and in 2004 opened another outlet in Bracknell.
Stoneworld have always supplied anyone who wants their products, from major contractors to Joe Public. Their biggest contract last year was with McAlpine, supplying 12,500m2 of paving for Bicester Village retail park. They also supply major builders merchants.
Stoneworld’s next move came in 2005 when Rob was refurbishing the kitchen in his own home. He, along with the rest of the country, wanted granite worktops. “When I stood up again after hearing the price I thought: why not import granite?”
He found a supplier of polished granite slab in China and bought a manually operated Kolb Genius to turn the slab into worktops – he bought the Kolb because he thought a CNC workcentre would be too complicated.
Interestingly, he says he has moved on in sourcing his granite and now buys a lot from wholesalers in the UK. “I still buy in from China for the middle market,” he told NSS, “but for the top end its easier to buy from the wholesalers – you can see the slab and guarantee the quality. I’m not in this business to sell a commodity. I want to sell the best I can. Even with the gravel we travel miles to get the best we can. We have never aimed ourselves at the B&Q market. The top end of the market is not so worried about the price – they just want the best.”
In his first year in the kitchen worktop sector he supplied and fitted more than 70 kitchens. Then it started to pick up.
By the beginning of 2007 he knew he had to have to a CNC workcentre to keep up with demand. Because there was no Natural Stone Show in London that year, he had to wait until the end of September to visit Marmomacc in Verona. It was there he saw the Robostone.
“I was amazed by it. I thought: I need one of those. The potential was so much greater than a CNC workcentre. It might be more than you need to make worktops but I’m always looking at what I can do next, not what I have done.”
With prices starting at more than £200,000 he did not place an order there are then, but back in the UK he contacted Harbro, who were then agents for the Robostone in the UK. They took him back to Italy to see the Robostone working in two workshops there and in April last year he placed the order.
It was installed in the first week of November and Steve Newbury, Rob’s brother-in-law, reckons it took a good six months to learn how to use it properly, although it was earning while he was learning – except for eight weeks when it was out of commission waiting for a faulty head to be replaced.
It does not take six months to learn how to produce worktops with the Robostone, especially using the Proliner digital templater that Stone-world bought along with it.
However, the more intricate carving work, such as that for the gateposts at Thame Park pictured on the previous page and the seat for the Thomas Hoblyn garden at Chelsea Flower Show pictured above, took a bit longer.
They were produced using a 3D laser scanner to input information into the robot. At Thame Park they took a scan from the original capital and then manipulated it on the computer to produce the instructions for the finished piece, carved on three sides rather than just the two of the original.
“It took a long time to learn how to do the computer work,” says Rob, “but it only took a day to actually produce the capital, even though it was the first time we had ever done any masonry work like that.”
As well as the Robostone, Stoneworld have also bought a second-hand ASM primary saw that Rob describes as “millimetre perfect” and a Weha Bravo secondary saw. The machinery is thirsty, but the water comes from a spring and is recycled.
Stoneworld have found their new capacity has already taken them into unexpected areas, notably the production of quoins, cills, corbels, parapets and other architectural masonry for extensions and restoration of property.
They have even been contacted by English Heritage to reproduce the rock art of neolithic man. Volunteers on a four-year English Heritage-backed project called the Northum-berland & Durham Rock Art Project unearthed a remarkable collection of more than 100 intricate rock art formations that have been scanned in 3D and were last year put on to the website http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/era.
Some of the 3D scans were given to Stone-world to reproduce on their Robostone. One of the results is pictured left.
More in line with what they were expecting to produce is the pool surround in White Mint Indian sandstone, pictured on the left of this page laid out in their workshop and crated ready for delivery.
They have also been contacted by sculptors and have already produced several carvings on the Robo-stone from clay maquettes that have been delivered to them. They scan them with lasers and the Robostone reproduces them in stone to the size required. They have also produced polystyrene sculptures on the Robostone from which moulds are made for casting the work.
“You don’t realise how many sculptors there are,” says Rob. “There are thousands of people all over the country making a living out of it. Some of them haven’t used stone as much as they would like to because it’s hard to work. They work in clay and have it cast in bronze. Now they can have it carved in stone just as easily as they can have it cast in bronze.”
What Stoneworld would like to do more of is the reproduction of repetitive stonework such as dentils, corbels or even intricate capitals, where the mason can produce an original and the Robostone can reproduce it ad infinitum.
“The robot will never take over from a mason because it can’t do the original work,” says Rob. Stoneworld do not employ masons. Three of the 14 people who work there are drivers, three are sales people plus Sonia Davies who does the marketing, two deal with accounts, there are two pickers in the yard, Steve and his assistant operate the machinery, and Rob is very much hands-on wherever he is needed as well as managing the business.
“We need a mason to make the original so we can scan it. That’s where I want to be: a fabricator to the masons. Sculptors have seen the benefits of this quicker than the masons so far.”
And are there any more developments planned for the future? “We’ll keep moving onwards and upwards,” says Rob. “We enjoy a challenge and will always look at someone else’s problem and try and come up with a solution. We try to keep life exciting.”