A new generation of engineered stone is spawning a new generation of machine tools to work them.

Francisco Martínez Cosentino, who heads the giant Spanish company that bears his family name and makes the market leading Silestone engineered quartz, says the company’s latest product, Dekton, gives stone companies a whole new raft of opportunities. But Dekton is hard and diamond blades and routers designed to be used on granite can stop working quickly when they are used on Dekton. One company that Natural Stone Specialist spoke to said its saw blade stopped cutting Dekton after just 3m.

Dekton was developed by Cosentino with the intention of blurring the lines between horizontal and vertical surface products and interiors and exteriors, with a material that can look like stone, wood or something completely new with the graining or other effect going all the way through, so it is still there when the material is machined.

To try to ensure there will be a market for Dekton, in the past year, stone processors, designers and press from across the world have been taken by Cosentino to see the new 500,000m2 factory the company has built at its headquarters in Cantoria, Spain, that can produce 3,300 slabs of the material each day.

Unlike Breton when it developed the machinery for making engineered quartz, Cosentino does not intend to licence the manufacturing process to anyone else. It will supply Dekton itself. Breton has taken the same approach with its new material, Lapitec.

Dekton was officially launched in the USA in July and in the UK at the 100% Design exhibition in London in September (see the previous issue of Natural Stone Specialist).

But the tooling was a potential problem.

Some stone companies found it difficult to process engineered quartz when they first started using it. It was necessary to get used to the speeds and pressures required to stop the tools scorching the resin-bonded materials. Eventually the tool-makers came up with products especially for processing engineered quartz.

No doubt they would have developed tools for processing Dekton eventually as well, but Cosentino wanted the tools ready for the launch of the material and approached several diamond tool companies to ask them to develop ranges specifically for cutting and shaping Dekton.

One of the companies approached that is now producing tools approved by Cosentino for use with Dekton is Diamut, the diamond tooling company that is part of the Biesse Group, which also makes Intermac CNC workcentres and waterjet cutters.

Diamut put its top man on to the project – Roberto Longato, who has 30 years’ experience of making diamond tools. He told NSS he was given samples of Dekton that were 20, 30 and 40mm thick.

Without giving away too many secrets about the making of the tools, he says Dekton, manufactured using a combination of ceramic and glass-making techniques, is exceptionally dense but not brittle. If it is hit with a hammer it rings like steel. The tools necessary to work such a material require a careful selection of diamonds set in a soft matrix that will stay ‘open’, so the tool does not clog up and become ineffectual in use.

Diamut has so far made saw blades (Intermac does not make bridge saws but Diamut does make blades for them) and routers for working Dekton and is currently developing a tool for making recess drainers.

Diamut’s Area Manager, Alberto Bisio, says Dekton has been well received in the USA and sales of the Diamut tools to work it have already taken off there. It remains to be seen if the success will be repeated in the UK.

Dekton is the latest in a raft of new engineered materials that are helping stone companies increase their market share, both in interiors and exteriors. There is Sinterlite from The Size, Lapitec from Breton, Glass Stone and plenty more. And the diamond tool makers can generally recommend some of their tools for whatever you want to cut, shape or polish.

And there are endless offers coming into everyone’s email inboxes of diamond tools from China, Korea and other parts of the World. Many stone processors have told NSS about their experiences of trying them, some more fruitful than others.

Consistency is often a problem and many processors, especially smaller companies that are not using large amounts of diamond tooling, prefer to pay a bit extra for the comfort of knowing the blade will work properly every time.

As Richard Chandler of tool and consumables wholesaler Combined Masonry Supplies says: “The knock on benefits of a good blade are huge.”

If a cut is not straight, the time spent straightening it and the diamond grinding tools consumed in the process can negate any savings made on buying a cheap blade. For many, the security of a straight cut is worth paying a bit extra for.

Processors often blame their bridge saw manufacturers when a cut goes off line, but both the machine and tool manufactures say it is more often the disc that is to blame than the saw.

Not that it is only cheap blades that do not always cut straight. Some stone processors complain that blades with the diamonds in patterns do not always cut straight, either.

The manufacturers believe it is not a result of the positioning of the diamonds in the segments but rather the strength of the disc itself, which comes down to its composition. Distributors say the third generation discs now being sold overcome the problem, but

D Zambelis, the distributor of Nicolai and other diamond tools, says it will not sell such discs because it has replaced so many of them for its customers.

Machine tools might all look much the same, which is not much different to how they have always looked, but Dominic Wearing, the Operations Manager of Norton Nimbus at Leeds, says developments are taking place all the time.

Norton Nimbus is the arm of the giant corporation St Gobain that makes diamond tools for the construction industry, including the stone sector. Dominic Wearing oversees the stone market in the UK from his base in Leeds. “There’s always been a toss up between the life of the blade and the speed of the cut,” he says.

The developments taking place always try to increase the life of the blade while increasing the speed of the cut, normally through the development and selection of the industrial diamonds used and the bonds that hold them together – and, generally, the harder the stone to be cut the softer the bond needed and vice versa.

And, of course, there are always efforts to reduce the price of the products – with considerable success. The days when diamond tooling cost almost as much as the annual salary of the operator using it are long gone.

Leading the developments at Norton Nimbus is the Production Solutions Programme (PSP). It works with customers to identify bottlenecks in the production process and come up with solutions to them.

It is in the quarries, especially with diamond wire sawing, that Diamant Boart, with its headquarters in Belgium and its UK base in Leeds, is currently enjoying most success worldwide, which is having some

spin-off benefit in the UK.

There is not a lot of wire sawing in Britain, but what there is can benefit from big developments in longer lasting, more efficient wires, especially for the multi-wire saws used in larger stone producing areas of the world.

Diamant Boart has also developed a range of circular segments designed for harder stones that are now giving impressive results on Irish limestone and some of the hard Yorkstones. And there is the promise of a new granite blade range, called Mach 5, which should be available in the early part of 2014.

Duncan McLean at Diamant Boart in Leeds says one of the big advantages a European company has over the low cost competition from the Far East is that it can normally deliver the next day. Diamant Boart also has locally based sales and service teams and offers account and customer credit terms, with no need to pay out large sums of money before the products are received.­

New products to make life easier for stone processors from Waters Group

New developments in materials mean tooling suppliers have to be up-to-date with the latest trends and materials. Waters Group stocks industry leading manufacturers of tooling and can supply customers with Dekton-specific tooling from ADI and Konig, both recommended for use with the newly launched material from Cosentino.

Waters Group saw the tooling and some results it had achieved at the Marmomacc exhibition in Verona earlier this year and customers stocking Dekton have placed orders for Waters Group tooling so they can manufacture from the slabs straight away.

Products available for processing Dekton are routers, blades, polishing pads and edge polishing wheels, all from industry leading manufacturers.

Waters Group has also received good feedback about the new ADI ‘Solution’ CNC router.

Available in 20mm or 22mm diameter for reduced drag, this router will allow operators to cut multiple materials with the applicable working parameters. The router has a six segment formation with excellent water distribution and a reinforced body, all of which contributes to a performance

that customers have praised along with its competitive price from the Waters Group. The router is also available with a segment on the bottom for rebate work if required.

The market for polishing pads is pretty consistant and there is always a good choice from Waters Group. However, the company says it is always on the look-out for products that offer customers alternative solutions and in the coming weeks will be adding a new range of three-position polishing pads for use on granite and engineered stone.

Customers who have trialled the pads have rated them highly.

You might remember Steve’s Polishing Pro system on the Waters Group stand at the Natural Stone Show in London earlier this year. It was well received at the Show and has had a lot of interest from customers since then. You can find out more about it at www.stevespolishingprosystems.com and watch videos of it being used on YouTube. But if you want a hands-on trial of the product, ‘Steve’ will be hosting some training days with Waters Group in the UK in March next year.

New Status diamond precision CNC range from Stonegate

Stone tool supplier Stonegate is the sole UK agent for the new Status Diamond Tooling range of precision CNC products.

Stonegate says the Status products are manufactured from the highest quality materials to provide top quality tooling at competitive prices backed up by Stonegate’s high standards of service, advice and aftersales support.

What Stonegate says it liked about Status Diamond CNC tools was their combination of strength and quality assured by rigorous quality control processes. It means Status tools consistently last a long time and cut accurately.

Every Status product is quality inspected before leaving the factory to ensure it meets the demanding standards of the manufacturer and that customers only receive the best possible products.

Status precision balances every tool to ensure maximum performance as well as supplying a diagram showing the exact radius and length for that particular tool, which means you can be sure of a top quality finish without having to spend a long time setting up – customers have found that having these presets can reduce set-up time by as much as 50%.

Status products give clean, accurate machining for improved product performance, greater longevity and fewer rejections, as well as ensuring longer lasting operation at higher speeds and with a better quality finish.

And more reliable tools not only mean better quality, they also give more tool uptime and greater accuracy, output and efficiency.

Call Stonegate on 01482 62040

DK Holdings moves to new headquarters

DK Holdings Ltd is responding to the upturn in the economy and what it says is an increased demand for UK manufactured diamond tooling by ‘breaking ground’ on its new manufacturing site in Kent (pictured above in computer graphics) by the end of the year. The new factory will, the company says, confirm DK’s position as one of the market leaders in diamond tooling to the stone industry and will enable it to enhance its customer service through 2014 and beyond.

The new purpose-built factory will include a state-of-the art computer system for a ‘total support package’ for customers. Also offered is a design, manufacture and supply service that allows customers to request bespoke tooling for their specific requirements.

DK has more than 50 years’ experience in manufacturing diamond tooling and is proud to have been one of the first to introduce three-step polishing pads for granite and engineered stone. The discs are available in 100mm and 125mm diameters with QRS backing and can be used wet or dry.

With an eye to the future, DK is constantly monitoring and updating its products and has now improved the Flutemaster grinding and polishing system. The Flutemaster is now easier to set up, is lighter, quicker and has smoother operation. The system incorporates a simple height adjustment device and will therefore work equally as well inside recessed draining boards or on flat stone and engineered stone surfaces. Flutes are ground and polished in minutes rather than hours. The diamond electroplated and resin bond wheels are available in 10mm, 12.7mm, 16mm and 20mm and are colour coded for ease of use. They are even suitable for use on hand held machines.

New Swediam abrasives just one of the offers from Roccia

Roccia Machinery has now been supplying diamond tools and consumables to the stone sector for 18 months, during which time it has seen continued growth as it has added to the range of tools available from names such as Nicolai Diamant, Swediam, KGS, Flex, Makita and others.

One area of particular growth is the CNC tooling offered by Nicolai Diamant. One reason for that is the amount of GMM CNC machines Roccia Machinery has sold in the past two years.

GMM saws now have a lot of the capabilities previously only available on CNC workcentres. “We have been able to supply tooling packages to suit individual needs, whether you are a kitchen worktop fabricator or specialise in architectural masonry,” says Roccia Manager Matthew Waterfall.

Swediam, which manufactures diamond edge polishing wheels and has been well established in the UK for many years, has developed a new abrasive designed to work with both granite and engineered quartz. Tests conducted by Roccia at its premises in Derby are, says Matthew, “simply outstanding”. The wheels will be on the market within the next two months and Roccia promises they will be extremely competitively priced.

Roccia Machinery now has a new website with the 2014 catalogue available on it. To see the diamond tools on offer go to www.rocciamachinery.com/consumables. If you require something not listed, Roccia will usually be able to source it quickly and most orders over £50 (not tile saws) include free delivery in the UK mainland.

Chamfers polished and calibrated by one disc

One of the problems with automatic polishing of flat edges is achieving well-polished chamfers with controlled and constant dimensions.

To solve this problem some manufacturers of edge-polishers have increased the number of mandrels for the completion of each chamfer. That means a bigger machines taking up more space, more diamond tools to buy and more complicated adjustment.

MarmoMeccanica says it has a better solution. It has developed a tool it calls Ela-Turbo, which can be used on any edge polisher, not just MarmoMeccanicas. It is three wheels in one. It is made up of a cupped stainless alloy support with a threaded connection (pitch on request). The floating head comprises a double diamond crown and, at the centre, a small diamond resin disc with a fine grain.

The outside crown with a coarse grain provides the calibration of the chamfer. The inner diamond crown, with a fine grain, can face while removing little material. The floating polishing head finishes the chamfer.

The double diamond crown for chamfers up to 7mm width can last more than 10,000 linear metres, while the internal disc, which is easily replaceable, can last for about 700-1000 linear metres. The performance of this tool has been tested for extended periods and the results, both in quality and longevity, are excellent with all kinds of materials, even Absolute Black.

MarmoMeccanica is sold in the UK by National Masonry.