Granite Fabrication

Granite is widely used in homes and offices and for building monuments. It is the stone used to make countertops, flooring, and decorative paneling. Granite is extracted from quarries and is in a rough form. Granite fabrication is the process of converting this rough stone into a smooth finished product in the required sizes.

Granite rock is a light colored, coarse-grained igneous rock. It is one of the hardest rocks and can withstand the vagaries of nature to a very good extent. The stone itself consists of quartz, feldspar, mica and traces of a wide variety of minerals. When the igneous rock cools it form crystals. Slower the rate of cooling bigger will be the size of the crystals. These crystals give the granite rock its wide varieties of designs.

Before the granite fabrication process starts the rock has to be extracted from the quarries. Some of the countries renowned for their granite quarries are Italy, United States of America, France, China, Brazil and Spain. The type of granite will depend upon the place from where it is extracted. Quarries are on the outskirts of major cities or are positioned in high mountains. Granite is quarried and cut into blocks of sizes ranging from 5 x 5 feet onwards. These blocks are then taken to fabrication plants.

Granite fabrication starts once the raw blocks arrive at the plants. Special tools and machinery is needed for granite fabrication and has to be carried out by very skilled professionals. The blocks are cut into slabs or tiles. Usually the tiles are cut into standard sizes of 12''x12'', 16''x16'', 18’’x18’’ or 24''x24''. The thickness of the tile will vary from 3/8'' to ¾''. For a slab the size is usually 9'x5' and the thickness is ¾'' or more. The cutting machines have a special type of fast rotating saw, which cuts into the granite. The saw has to be constantly cooled, by spraying special coolant liquids.

The Block saw, Gang saw or the Diamond wire saw is used to cut the blocks into slabs. Then the Bridge saw is used to cut the slab into the shape, which is desired. Now a new type of machine is available which uses water jets combined with an abrasive material, to cut edges and holes smoothly and quickly.

Once the cutting is over, the polishing starts in the process of granite fabrication. The slabs or tiles are put through huge polishing machines with multiple heads that rotate at high speeds. These heads are pads covered with special abrasive compound bricks or discs. This polishing process will smooth out any roughness and will add a natural shine on the surface of the granite. These machines can produce different types of finishes. From a mirror shine finish to a flamed, tumbled or hammer finish is possible.

After the polishing, there is the routing process in granite fabrication. Routers are machines used to create the required edge profiles on the slab. These machines can also cut designs for larger slabs used in fireplace mantles. For countertops the machine can provide a standard or a highly decorative edge.