While the messages are still mixed from the stone industry in general, New Stone Age is enjoying its highest level of sales since 2001, which was its best year ever.

Helping it to this success are two new marques – Benetti quarry saws and Faedo cranes. The Benetti saws might seem to be in competition with another of the New Stone Age brands – BM, which New Stone Age has represented in the UK for more than 30 years. But James Turton, the Managing Director of New Stone Age, says Benetti fast belts are ideal for relatively soft, non-abrasive limestones, not the sandstones that the BMs can slice through.

The Faedo overhead and gantry cranes, which complement the Righetti vacuum lifts in the New Stone Age range, have turned out to be just what some stone companies needed when they were buying other machinery that New Stone Age sells, enabling New Stone Age to provide complete processing solution packages.

Omec water treatment plant sold by New Stone Age has also been in demand as stone processors look for ways of reducing their overheads and becoming more environmentally friendly. And often customers for Omec have also bought processing machines.

NSS reported on the bespoke Omec solution provided by New Stone Age for Hutton Stone in Berwick-upon-Tweed in the February issue. It turns out Hutton Stone was not alone in wanting a system designed specifically to cope with its particular needs.

Another customer for Omec water treatment was Richard Heather’s Meister Masonry, which wanted it installed in its new factory in Cheltenham along with Faedo cranes. Meister has bought a 10tonne gantry plus three 5tonne overhead cranes to improve handling.

Meister is producing a lot of masonry for London contractors and buys large amounts of stone sawn-six-sides. It thought it could buy block and saw the stone itself more cost effectively and wanted the cranes to improve handling of the stone to and from a new Benetti Fast 736 diamond belt saw, which New Stone Age has also sold to Meister.

James Turton says the Benetti Fast is appropriately named because it can saw through limestone three-and-a-half times faster than an average monoblade – Portland Stone Firms, which quarries Portland limestone, has three of them.

Meister has also bought a heavyweight Marchetti AXCO 1600 six axes CNC workcentre (Marchetti is another of the ranges sold in the UK by New Stone Age). It has a 1.6m ‘Z’ axis and a 6tonne lathe. It is supplied complete with a new type of scanning system that enables it to import 3D models directly from the scanner. And because the scanner is fully portable it can go on-site to scan existing masonry, which is a real boon for conservation work.

Ian Lowes Stonemasonry in Cumbria is another customer for the Omec water treatment plant that has also bought other equipment from New Stone Age. It bought a smaller, 500L/min Omec water processing system to work alongside the BM 800 monoblade, which now comes with QEM touch-screen operation.

All BM saws, which are sold exclusively in the UK by New Stone Age, now come with non-corroding glass fibre guards that are easy to remove for blade changing and maintenance.

Another New Stone Age customer for the Omec water treatment system was AD Calvert Architectural Stone Supplies in North Yorkshire, which was looking for greater capacity to cope with the extra water requirements of new machinery it was buying.

The new system has a cleaning capacity of 1,600L/min, which can cope with the requirements of the new Bombieri & Venturi (BV) TBV/1600M automatic block cutter the company has installed with an Aero BV automatic unloader. BV is another of the New Stone Age established marques.

The BV block cutter now simultaneously feeds an ashlar line and a walling line that New Stone Age had previously supplied.

Another BV block cutter (a TBV/1600-4MG) with an Aero BV automatic unloader has gone to Dennis Gillson & Son at Naylor Hill Quarry in Keighley. It is pictured on the cover of this issue of NSS.

The Aero BV is automatically unloading the sawn-four-sides strips cut from the block on to a pallet for further processing on a paving / walling line. The overhead unloader can lift up to 500kg of stone at a time.

New Stone Age has supplied a special BV 1200mm diameter heading machine and a BV bridge saw to Cumbrian stone quarry and processing company Burlington, which wanted them in order to process small blocks (or cloggs) that were previously discarded as waste. It is turning them into setts and small roofing tiles.

Burlington had already bought a BV 1400mm diameter automatic bridge saw to process small blocks. It was modified with an extended bridge so two trolleys could be positioned under it. It was supplied with a laser measuring device that the operator setting up the blocks can use to enter the cut needed into the computer of the saw without having to line up the blade of the saw to obtain the information. It saves a lot of time when

15-20 blocks are being sawn at a time.

The adaptation of the bridge saw was easy because BV fabricate the bridges from steel rather than using cast iron. It makes it a simple matter to adapt them to customer requirements without compromising on accuracy or vibration, says James Turton.

All the latest product launches from the manufacturers represented by New Stone Age in the UK will be on show in Verona this month. They include the AXCO 1600 CNC Workcentre going to Meister, which will be on the Marchetti Stand.

James concludes: “We have the expertise to offer any solutions for stone processing to unlock the full potential of your business.”