What Is Granite?

Granite is an igneous rock having a massive structure and is hence popularly used as a construction stone. It is often found as a huge monolith and needs to be processed systematically before it can be used in construction. Granite stone, when polished, turns into an elegant piece of lustrous stone which can be used for making slabs and tiles for kitchens and bathrooms. However, granite doesn’t exist in the lustrous form naturally and has to undergo various processes after which it can be finally used. This is known as granite fabrication.
Granite fabrication involves three basic processes: sawing, polishing and routing. Sawing deals with cutting the monolith into smaller slabs for polishing. There are specialized machines constructed separately for each process. Initially the granite is in the form of a monolith brought directly from the quarry to the processing plant. It has to be cut down into smaller slabs so that it can be polished and processed further. A block saw is used to cut the huge boulder into smaller slabs. Of late, the block saw has been replaced by the diamond wire saw because of the latter’s faster cutting rate. The diamond saw contains diamonds studded on a metal wire to cut faster and more easily. The bridge saw then cuts the slabs further into a designated shape. Water is used as the coolant during the cutting process.
The next stage is polishing the cut granite slab. A polisher is used to grind the stone, polishing it to the required level desired by the user. Since granite is a very hard stone, the degree to which it can be polished is very high. We can obtain an almost mirror like finish by polishing it to a high degree. A polisher contains rotating plates fitted with abrasive materials on its surface. The quality of finish can be controlled by changing the coarseness of the abrasive substance. Once the granite slab is through with polishing, it needs to undergo the routing process. A router basically gives shape to the edge of the granite piece. It is also used to cut designs on larger granite pieces. There are standard edge designs in which the granite slab edges can be shaped. The router has a diamond studded spinning blade which travels from edge to edge, shaping it. Water is used as the coolant in this process too.
Now-a-days, all the three processes are controlled by the CNC (Computer Numeric Control) technology. It uses digital techniques to control all the three processes and the machines associated with them. This technology is very fast and accurate compared to the previous semi-automated functions used to control the machines and is hence fast replacing the old technology. This technology has reduced the time of the fabrication process from about 2-3 weeks to a single day. Once the desired final product is designed on the CAD (Computer Aided Design) program, it is fed to the CNC system which then finishes the job easily and efficiently. The final product is thus obtained.