Andy Maclean of specialist stone design company Stewart Design reckoned he had found the best pvc sheeting possible for cutting templates on his Graphtec. So did Graphtec. In fact, the plotter maker liked it so much it asked Andy if it could point its customers in his direction for supplies of the material. Andy was happy to oblige.

A little later he received another call from Graphtec asking him if he would also like to sell the plotters to the stone industry in the UK and Ireland.

To be selling equipment rather than services was certainly a departure for Andy but one he was happy to embark upon. He still offers templates as part of his design service, but when he showed his Graphtec plotter at the Natural Stone Show at ExCeL London in May it was not only to promote his templating service, it was also to sell the plotters to stone companies along with his pvc for making templates on it.

What constitutes the best pvc for making templates is a material that does not stretch or distort while it is being cut, so the template is accurate. The pvc Stewart Design supplies is 100m long x 1.2m wide by 0.25mm thick in translucent grey. A roll weighs 40kg.

Andy had always liked Graphtec plotters for their ability to produce accurate templates quickly – especially once he had found the ideal medium to cut the templates into – which was why he was using one in his offices in Charlbury, Oxfordshire.

The plotters come in five sizes, ranging from 600mm wide to 1600mm wide, the most popular model being the 1300mm version. They can deal with most requirements for templates for natural stone, with their reliable long length tracking and a cutting force of up to 600gf. And they work at a speed of 1485mm/s.

What Andy really likes is the Graphtec’s ability to cut the templates and plot the text in one operation, negating the need to change over the pen and the cutter. This has saved Stewart Design significant amounts of time when plotting its templates.

That high productivity level was essential for a business like Stewart Design, especially on projects such as a contemporary design mansion currently being built in Yorkshire by Stone Connection for a successful Huddersfield businessman.

Johnsons Wellfield Quarries is supplying finished masonry made from its famous Crosland Hill sandstone for the project. Stewart Design has designed the stone detail, producing hundreds of templates for Johnsons to use to make the masonry.

Not that Stewart Design necessarily has to be involved in any of the design elements of a project for customers to be able to benefit from its plotter. It is happy to rent out time on the machine for other designers and stone companies to use.

And it is easy for them to use it. Graphtecs can accept files from most commercially available computer-aided design programs (such as AutoCAD and TurboCAD) that can be simply emailed over to Stewart Design. The templates will normally be output the same day and dispatched by courier the following day.

Granite Le Pelley in Jersey is one company that is now frequently using the service from Stewart Design for outputting its templates.

For more information on the plotters and pvc for templates call Andy Maclean at Stewart Design (UK) Ltd on 01608 811500 or 07768 512775. 

“We are ecstatic with it! Should have bought one years ago” – Mick Bushell, Albion Stonemasons Ltd, Salisbury