Fabrication Process for Your granite bridge saw

QHW-400 granite bridge saw is highly automatic machine well built to perform various tasks in marble and granite processing. It is ideal in cutting tombstone, building stone and big size slabs etc.

Getting granite countertops installed in your home is a relatively simple process when looked at from the perspective of what you as the consumer can see from beginning to end. Simply put, you call us, select your slabs, & agree on the particulars, then a couple of weeks later they are installed.

There is however a lengthy process involved in getting the stone from its natural state in the earth all the way to your kitchen countertop. The process of turning stone into decorative and functional building materials has been more or less the same for centuries. On the other hand, the equipment has changed dramatically in that time, and the production time greatly reduced.

The process starts at the stone quarry where large blocks are cut from the earth often in a stair-step like pattern. Various types of sawing & cutting methods are used. There are wire saws which are long steel cables with diamond sections embedded in them. These cables are passed through "core holes" which have been drilled horizontally and vertically to a meeting point in the invisible corner of the "bench" to be removed. Then the cable is run through a drive, continuously going deeper into the stone. Core drilling, as mentioned above, coupled with "blasting" is another method of freeing large blocks of stone in this first step of the process. Some quarries use expanding liquid rather than explosives in the core holes-this is for the more fragile stone to keep from fracturing the blocks.

This first step of the process requires very large and heavy equipment to get the granite blocks from the earth and ready for shipping to the "gang" saws. When the blocks arrive at the gang saw operation, the entire block is cut into some 40-60 slabs simultaneously. These blocks are not a standard size, however a rough average would be 6 feet by 6 feet by 10 feet. This would yield 72 one inch thick slabs less the cutting blades, so around 60 slabs. The blades on a typical gang saw are not really blades, they are flat steel material 3" x 3/16 inch thick. They have no teeth or diamond in them. They are mounted on a large rack 2cm or 3 cm apart depending on the desired slab thickness. The rack is wider than the 6 foot wide slab. This rack in turn is mounted to an arm that is attached to the outer side of a massive flywheel creating a back and forth motion of the rack as the wheel is turned by powerful motors.

Once the block has been turned into slabs, the cart holding the 60 slabs is driven on its rail cart to the polishing line. The polishing line is another massive machine with multiple heads driving various grits of grinding and polishing wheels progressing from rough to polish. These heads drive horizontal grinders as the rough slab goes on a horizontal plane slowly through the machine on a conveyor belt. When the slabs come out the other end of the polishing line, they have become polished from their rough state. They are then loaded onto A frames for shipping to the wholesale warehouses throughout the world.

At this point the slabs enter our world here at Alpha StoneWorks, and our turn in the process begins. We come to your home and make an accurate template of your countertop areas. This can easily be done on new cabinets or on top of your existing countertops without disturbing them. After we have made the template, we like to meet with you at our shop for a layout review so we can agree on which portion of the various slabs will go on the different sections of your counters.

The bridge saws body is inner lined with putty and then well painted to protect from rusting. All cables are supported by drag chain to ensure safety and long service life.