AF Jones has three strings to its bow: architectural stonework, heritage and interiors. With Megan becoming the sixth generation of her family in the firm and charged with business development, and a new factory for interiors due next year, optimism abounds.

At the front of AF Jones’ workshops and new showroom in Ipsden, Oxfordshire, a carved runner leaves the starting block in the first column of a portico. He runs from column to column, the bold lines and modern idiom of the carving symbolising the innovation and modernisation of the company. On the sixth column, embellished with intricate hand carving, he stretches for the finishing line.

The columns were produced on a six-axes CNC in the AF Jones factory. They are gritty and poignant art, with the last figure hand carved by one of their own developed apprentices, symbolising not just the company’s ambition and continual development, but also the importance of craftsmanship underpinning everything that AF Jones does.

This balance of acknowledging the rich history of the company and the family that founded and continues to run it, and keeping alive the craftsmanship of architectural stonemasonry while never standing still, always looking to innovate, challenge and look forward is “absolutely central” to AF Jones and its culture, says Megan Jones. She is the daughter of Managing Director Angus Jones and the sixth generation of the family to join the business.

The latest addition to the displays outside the premises shows an impressive post-tensioned stone staircase mounted on a frame (pictured left). Feature staircases have become an important aspect of modern interiors and the display emphasises AF Jones’ focus on interiors as one of the three major sectors of its business along with architectural and heritage stonemasonry.

AF Jones is a traditional stonemasonry business that has historically concentrated on the architectural and heritage sides of the industry. But Megan points out that the stone interiors market has been growing significantly. Angus makes it clear that AF Jones has been delivering high spec, sophisticated interiors projects for certain clients for decades, but that investment in this growing sector is backing the team, their knowledge, and a long-held view that they can do better in this market.

AF Jones’ main premises are on the A4074 that runs between Reading and Oxford. The site is called, appropriately, The Old Quarry Works, although before Angus bought it in 2001 and finished moving the AF Jones works out of its town centre premises in Reading in 2007, it had been a garage.

The new showroom was built to enhance and emphasise the interiors sector, which it does with a minimalist yet striking visual style – screens display past projects and the full visual scope of the products are on display there.

Angus says: “It’s aimed at allowing clients and project partners the scope to spark imagination and as an inspirational setting for us to have meaningful conversations. You need a space to thrash things out.”

And the the two metre tall bespoke-design post tensioned staircase taking shape on a steel frame jig at the side of the new building is the evidence of that ambition, showing the company’s intent to innovate, challenge and be forward thinking.

Elaborate stone staircases have become a major feature of top-of-the-range residencies in recent years – and many properties in Oxfordshire, London and the Home Counties, where AF Jones works, are certainly top of the range.

At first, most staircases were cantilevered into the walls of properties, but lately, threading steel through the stone and tensioning it has allowed even greater versatility of design and visual impact.

Angus says: “Forward thinking design, making partnerships and not losing sight of quality are key to our success.”

Looking forward

With challenging work comes the need for the company’s staff to challenge how things have typically been done, and Megan is an important part of that way of thinking.

Family firm it may be, but Megan had to establish her own skills and commercial credibility among an already strong family presence. She says it had always been made clear that nobody could simply join the firm because they were part of the family. They had to go out into the world and bring what they learnt back into the business.

As the new Business Manager at AF Jones, Megan brings with her experience and understanding of best practice manufacturing processes, business development, as well as marketing gained from working in the fast-moving consumer goods field and an MBA from the London School of Economics (LSE).

And with stonemasonry ever-present in her background, Megan is also keenly aware of the values and ambitions of the company, as well as its long background and sense of history. “We’re creating legacies,” she says. “That was a key factor why I wanted to work here. What we do here is just beautiful. It is appreciated by us, and will be appreciated for generations to come. But we’re a hidden gem. It’s pushing open that door to get better known.”

As well as her father, Angus, Angus’s brother, Ken Jones, works at the company, joining after 17 years with Buro Happold Engineering in 2015. Ken’s skills as an engineer fit well with AF Jones, and now Angus and Ken believe Megan’s skills bring the business on another step.

Angus: “Being a modern family business brings many positives, especially when it comes to the integrity and values we want to carry forward with us. However, it does not define us. Our team and our combined vision and ambition for crafting challenging, difficult and interesting work is what drives us.”

The philosophy spans heritage, masonry and interiors, and Megan says identifying these three sectors as specialities within the business is a new departure for AF Jones. They have even created two separate websites in recognition of the different customer base they are aiming to reach.

“Today’s world is totally different to what it was,” says Megan. “If you want a staircase you’re Googling ‘staircase’, not ‘stonemasons’. We are stonemasons, but we are also specialists in these three sub-sectors and we want to communicate this effectively.”

The people

At the heart of the business are the 38 people who work there. Some of those at Ipsden and on-site have been there since they were apprentices. As Angus says: “Apprentices we had when I joined my dad in the business in 1993 are now running the factory. Training is the lifeblood of the industry.”

He says looking after the staff is important because: “They make up our DNA. People want to work for a company where everyone’s valued, where they know they have a future. And they are the people who will pass on centuries of stonemasonry skills to the next generation.”

Megan adds: “I’m 100% an advocate of developing people within the firm. It’s better to develop your own people within your own culture. We work hard but there’s a real team focus and support for each other and being proud of what we achieve.”

Everyone at AF Jones gets together on a Friday once a month so they all know each other, whatever department they work in. “It’s communication. If people get on it solves half the problems,” says Megan.

She also gives the example of Libby Button, who started with the company as a yard manager but wanted to learn to operate a CNC and get involved with the growing interiors side, which she is currently doing.

Ecologically sound

Another advantage stone has and can benefit from promoting is its low environmental impact.

Megan: “Sustainability is incredibly important to us. We have to take responsibility for our future generations just as we do to make sure our stone lasts just as long. It’s also important to our clients. They’re our partners to success and they want sustainability.”

The next move in that direction will be solar panels on the workshop roofs and possibly a fleet of electric vehicles, especially for going into London and other city centres with diesel bans and pollution charges. A charge point has already been installed at the AF Jones premises.

Workshop investment

AF Jones has invested in the workshop as well as the showroom, increasing production capacity fourfold.

The company already owns land adjacent to the site and has plans to extend the factory by a further 350m2. Planning permission has been obtained and the intention is to open the new area of the factory next year, increasing the space for interiors and freeing up more room for the architectural stonework side.

The company is making the investment based on better information than it has ever had before, thanks to the customer relationship management (CRM) system it installed in September 2021.

Angus: “Ken, Megan and our team are bringing us into the 21st century, and part of that is having some proper reporting instead of my gut feeling.”

As well as having the CRM software, the four GMM saws in the factory, two Omag CNCs and an Intermac, and a new GraniRoc wire saw are all linked and run by Alphacam software reporting back to the office. “The Saw Shop Production Office is like being on a ship with everything connected to the bridge,” says Angus.

Having all the information the software provides at his fingertips is helping him feel confident about the future. “We have a great working environment and we are very proud of that. The investment in technology and people, built on a great culture, means we are well set for the future.”

afjones.co.uk

It was good to get back to the face-to-face contact of the NAMM Tradex memorial masonry exhibition last week as the shadow of Covid lifts.

The exhibition had been scheduled for 2021, but with Covid restrictions still impacting the world last year the National Association of Memorial Masons (NAMM), which runs the exhibition, in agreement with exhibitors, decided to postpone the exhibition to 15-16 September this year.

As it turned out, that happened to fall just ahead of the extra bank holiday for The Queen’s funeral, which possibly dissuaded some people from visiting Warwickshire Event Centre for Tradex last week.

The memorial masonry sector of the stone industry is small, with only about 1,000 retail outlets across the country, some of them run by funeral directors, so it is never going to be a huge show. There were 27 exhibitors this time – compared with 23 in 2019 when the wholesalers did not attend – and several hundred visitors (the number was still to be confirmed at the time of writing). Both exhibitors and visitors generally professed satisfaction during the event.

The exhibitors included newcomers and regulars. In the case of Matt Bridges' electric sack trucks, they could have been in both categories, because while Matt was back with the trucks that he designed with his company MGB Easy Handling, he has now sold the company to Armorgard and is working for Armorgard as part of its research and development team.

Armorgard makes site safety and handling equipment and Matt Bridges' electric trucks take it into powered equipment for the first time. It sells its products through distributors and the Easy Handling sack trucks are now being sold by Combined Masonry Supplies, which Armorgard shared a stand with at Tradex. 

There was an unusually high number of people (more than 100) who had registered to attend the exhibition and did not turn up. The extra deaths since the start of the pandemic have meant the memorial masonry sector is busy, which probably contributed to some memorial masons not making it to Warwickshire.

And it looks as if they are going to stay busy for some time yet. Deaths in 2020 were about 15% above the pre-pandemic five-year average. It could have been more with the big spike at the beginning of the year, but it was followed by fewer deaths than normal, probably because the pandemic had killed off some of those who would otherwise have died in the following months.

In 2021 the number of deaths was still 10% above the five-year pre-pandemic average. The Office for National Statistics has now changed the five-year average to include 2021 deaths, but is not including the 2020 figure. From 2 April to 12 August, the number of deaths this year compared with the new five-year average again showed an increase, this time of nearly 11%.

About half the extra deaths mentioned Covid on the death certificates. Those that didn’t have led to speculation about the cause: slower response time by ambulances; longer waits for cancer screening; the difficulty of getting GP appointments; a natural increase due to the ageing population (the death rate of over 85-year-olds was 8.5% above the five-year average).

Whatever the reason, it has increased the workload of the death care industry in general, and some masons might have been too busy to take time out to visit the exhibition, especially with a bank holiday for The Queen's funeral shortening the following week.

Nevertheless, spirits were generally high during the exhibition and as exhibitors packed up to leave many said they were content with the level of business transacted during the two days.

Because the memorial wholesalers have been so busy, the number of new memorials and catalogues on show was limited, with the suppliers struggling just to meet demand for their existing collections. Consequently, the wholesalers’ stands were generally smaller than they have sometimes been in the past.

Odlings decided, in the absence of new memorials, to have a cocktail bar to attract visitors to its stand, with flair mixologist Steve juggling bottles and glasses before serving the drinks (you can see him in action on the video at the bottom of this page).

Odlings showed examples of the outstanding sandblasting and painting skills of its artists, with one of them, Sandra Davison, giving a demonstration of painting granite on the stand. At the front of the stand there was a picture of The Queen, made up of 20 individual pieces of granite, each etched and painted by a separate artist employed by Odlings.

Newly promoted general manager Chris Kemp said the piece had been produced for The Queen’s 70th Jubilee, and Odlings had even considered not bringing it to Tradex after The Queen died. Fortunately, it was brought and visitors considered it a fitting tribute to the late monarch.

Odlings was also showing its first range of ceramic photo plaques and decorative stone and glass chippings that it has introduced to its product ranges.

Another part of the same group as Odlings is the equipment supplier Odlings MCR, which was back again showing the blast cabinets it makes – and warning that this would be the last time they would be on sale at their pre-pandemic prices because of the enormous increases in the price of steel and components used to make the cabinets.

Odlings MCR was also showing a full range of compressors, including, for the first time, screw compressors that are much quieter and keep the moisture out of the blast material, so you don’t have to spend hours cleaning the equipment.

New memorial designs were on show on some of the wholesalers’ stands. CJ Imports, for example, with its own Premium Khammam Ebony Black quarry and factory in India, had created new designs specifically for the exhibition. Pradeep Gupta said having its own quarry and works had enabled CJ to maintain supplies during the pandemic while others had struggled. He said during one week in June the company had hit a new record of importing 14 containers of memorials.

Robertson Memorials was showing its latest designs, including one in Scottish granite, and Frank England also had new designs on display that will be among those that appear in the next edition of its catalogue, although there will also be others not yet made and the catalogue will not be printed until they are. Barham Stone was celebrating its 25th anniversary and Willcox Granite was auctioning the six memorials it was showing in order to raise money for Ukraine and raised £2,650.

As well as memorials, Frank England was showing, for the first time at Tradex, the dust free Abra sandblasting equipment from Poland that it now sells in the UK. The machines were being demonstrated on the stand by Magdlena Czekaj and Thomasz Wilczko from Abra. As well as workshop sandblasters, there are machines for adding an inscription in situ, which are all dust free and compact thanks to the recirculating aluminium oxide blast medium. Abra also makes an impact etcher.

The Blast Shop had its own version of an impact etcher on its stand, which it had not expected to be showing. Ahead of the exhibition MD Rob Critchley said he could not get the machines because they are made in Ukraine and supply had been disrupted by the invasion by Russia. However, supply had resumed just ahead of the show’s opening and one of the etchers was on show.

The Blast Shop had also been concerned it might not receive what Rob described as a “cool  new lifting device” from Germany in time to include on its stand at Tradex. But it, too, arrived in the nick of time and Rob was able to demonstrate the adjustable lifting tripod that makes positioning the stone so much easier (you can see him and it in the video at the bottom of this page).

The Blast Shop also showed a new size for applying gold leaf that can be used anywhere from 25 minutes after application until as much as 15 hours later. And it showed the latest updates to its Memorial Design software.

There was more software from Memorial Works by Indigo 21, SNA Software Systems and Wissen UK.

SNA systems have been used by memorial masons for many years, but Indigo 21 and Wissen were exhibiting for the first time and both said they had a good time at the show.

Jeff Green, who runs Indigo 21, has set up Memorial Works to offer masons a range of products to help with customer relationship management and the design and production of memorials. He says his father was a lettercutter and he grew up around the memorial trade. “The stone trade has always been my passion and it’s great fun working with memorial masons,” he told Natural Stone Specialist.

He and the graphic designers he works with produce unique designs for memorials. All the work is completed in the cloud and Memorial Works can accommodate whatever software the memorial mason uses, such as MasonART or Illustrator.

Kevin Wallace from Wissen was introducing StoneMaker, a memorial design and stencil cutting system, including Graftex plotters if required. He said Tradex was the first show he had been to where visitors had wanted to buy and pay for the system at the exhibition itself.

There’s more from the show with the pictures below and you can go to the NAMM website by clicking here.

 

David Coster, Director of Advanced Stone & Masonry Supplies, which sells Stain Proof and Tenax products, talks to Robert Jay, who has set himself up as R J Stone Consultancy, having previously been a Director of Prima Marble & Granite in north London.

David Coster: Quartz, sintered/porcelain or natural stone?

Robert Jay: Categorically, being brought up in the industry in the ’80s, natural materials for myself. We had materials like Kinawa Rose back in the ’80s for kitchen worktops and flooring. But from a business point of view and knowing what the material size and cost will be before you start a job, you can’t beat man-made materials. For volume production it’s going to be man-made. My preference is for something more bespoke, but the expectations of clients are too great for natural materials. If those expectations can be managed and are more realistic, I think there’s a market to be had there.

David Coster: Straight off the CNC or hand finished?

Robert Jay: Off the CNC. After being brought up in a factory where we had 25 blokes on benches with angle grinders and seeing all the machines available today there’s no need to try to finish by hand. The technological advancements over the past 20 years… you can’t beat it.

Physical templating or digital?

The majority of templating now is digital, although a couple of guys are still more comfortable with Correx.

In the residential, end user market, Correx makes sense because Mrs Smith wanting a set of worktops including a breakfast bar with an overhang can see a piece of Correx and agree on the size of the overhang, radius ends. It means something. Doing it digitally you can’t get that across to an end user. Signing off something that says a radius size on it, people don’t get it.

But the moment you have any sort of volume and speed is required, you can’t beat digital templating. It’s fairly new for me to say that. Once I would have always been a Correx man. But with Correx you have the issue of physically getting the Correx templates to a factory. If you have a guy who’s onsite at 8-o-clock in the morning and he’s templating until the end of his working day at 4-o-clock, he can do that every day with digital templates, but with Correx he has to pick it up in the morning and take the templates back before the factory can start making something. You have a massive amount of wasted time, effort and money in moving Correx about.

Tell us about the consultancy you have started up now.

My business now is offering a consultancy service on templating, supply and installation of all types of stone and solid worksurfaces to retailers, people I have worked with for many, many years. I’m also offering some of my knowledge and experience on systems and the development of systems for smaller fabricators, who are often stretched and just haven’t got the time or experience to put new systems into place to be scalable.

So many of the fabricators and factories I’m talking to are stuck in that rut where they can’t move forward from where they are.

Nobody has the time, so you offer your services to see if you can save them that time somewhere?

Indeed – save them time, save them money. Putting in new procedures because so many of the people I’m talking to are still working in what we would have called, back in the day, working off the back of a fag packet.

A lot of the people in this industry started by working with their hands. You would happily be the head to go along with those hands?

Yes. My background is purely commercial. I have never been on the tools. I have never been a templater or fitter. I have purely done the business side of it, so I can add that commercial expertise to any small business; to those companies turning over a million to one-and-half-million and run by people who know the business and are still on the tools all day every day. The moment they come off the tools and start looking at what new processes are needed they’re not producing goods and they’re not earning.

What are you looking to work on over the next year or so?

The systems that a small company turning over a million or so can afford to put into place – a fairly easy, straight forward customer relations management system (CRM) that will just manage their quotes and their jobs fairly simplistically, but ensuring the systems are followed and which any member of staff can access – right the way through to putting in much bigger systems that will run a whole company, from the initial CRM and quoting through to final invoicing.

I can offer that now, including all the training and setting up of all the products and prices for stock management. I can take it as far down the line as you need it, through to accounting to ensure every bit of the business is managed. It allows the owners to have a very quick overview of where they’re at without physically having to be sitting in front of spreadsheets all the time.

When it comes to Brexit and Covid, are we out the other side?

I think our industry is. The bigger impact has been to our clients – to kitchen retailers, building contractors and main contractors, with them getting product through so they’re ready for when they need us. We have a shortage of labour in this country. It has hit our industry as well, but has predominantly hit those trades before we are needed.

We are coming to the end of marble quartz, maybe? Where would you want to be as a fabricator?

I would want to be offering more than just worktops. I think one of the big things in our industry is that getting a client is tough; converting an enquiry into a job is tough. So we have to make more of it; come up with a way to get a bigger order number off the same order, whether that’s offering different types of splashbacks, offering sideboards and furniture for the lounge, offering elements within the same job to beef the number up.

People are talking about glass worktops coming back. They say there’s been developments that make the glass stronger, and that might attract some at the top end of the market. In stone, ideally marble with a decent finish to it. Something that’s sustainable, manageable, will live up to clients’ expectations as a kitchen worktop.

And bathrooms?

Absolutely. Two or three of my big clients do kitchens and bathrooms. If someone is doing a refurbishment that involves a kitchen it probably means there are also two or three bathrooms and perhaps a utility or downstairs cloakroom.

It always makes me laugh that as an industry we fight over 5m2 in the kitchen when there’s perhaps 90m2 in the bathrooms in the same house.

I totally agree. Once you have that client on board they’re trusting you because they have placed their biggest order with you. To pick up a few bathrooms that might only be £10,000-£15,000 each, but there might be four or five of them and a downstairs cloakroom, is not so difficult. Tiles, stone worktops, window cills and the rest can increase the value of the job massively, just by making sure we win those other areas.

So you can help fabricators make the most of what they have, saving them time and eventually money?

Making them more profitable, categorically. Enabling them to be scalable. If there’s one big message for smaller companies it’s that they can’t grow if everything’s done in a notebook on a desk somewhere, because that’s not scalable.

A joint initiative between Welsh Slate owner Breedon Group, Network Rail and the Welsh Government has brought the disused freight yard sidings at Llandudno Junction back to life.

The Llandudno Junction freight yard had not been used for many years, but vegetation removal, track repairs and refurbishment of the points that allow trains to move into the sidings have brought it back into service.

The yard is near Welsh Slate's main Penrhyn Quarry. The main purpose of re-opening the freight yard is to make it easier to move up to 260,000 tonnes of Welsh Slate aggregates, ranging from sub-base to decorative aggregate, a year, with trains running weekly.

Typically, the trains will carry 1,500 tonnes of material at a time rather than the 28 tonnes an individual lorry can carry. Using trains will cut CO2 emissions, road traffic and operating costs, making it economically and environmentally viable to transport the aggregates further afield.

Welsh Slate is famous for its roofing slates, but it takes the removal of a lot of slate to produce the roofing slates. Some of the waste has always been sold as aggregate but the new railhead should mean more of it can now be sold. Waste slate tipped down the sides of mountains is a feature of the landscape of Snowdonia, now part of a World Heritage Site.

The first freight train to leave the refurbished railhead was taking the equivalent of 76 lorry-loads of Welsh Slate Hard Grey Type 1 sub-base aggregates to Luton.

Welsh Slate became part of the Breedon Group in 2018, when Breedon bought the previous owner, the Irish Lagan Group (read more about that here).

Breedon, based in Derbyshire, already operates several other railheads around the UK, and this latest investment will further improve its distribution network for customers and lower the carbon footprint of Breedon operations.

The project was supported by the Freight Facilities Grant Scheme, which encourages modal shifts to deliver environmental benefits by removing HGVs from roads.

Andy Roberts, Breedon’s General Manager for the West of England & North Wales, says: “At Breedon, we have a strong commitment to sustainability. We recognise the important practical and environmental benefits of rail freight, so we are pleased that this new facility will allow a greater range of slate materials to be delivered across the UK in a more sustainable manner. We are delighted to have worked with the Welsh Government and our partners to invest in this high-quality freight facility in North Wales.”

John Smith, Chief Executive Officer at GB Railfreight, which is operating the trains, added: “We’re delighted to be transporting slate aggregates from Llandudno Junction. It is encouraging to see the Government and the private sector come together to enable a service that will transport key construction materials, create employment opportunities, and drive local growth. This new service will demonstrate the commercial, environmental and safety benefits of transporting goods by rail freight.”

In addition to road and rail, Welsh Slate also ships slate aggregates by sea to destinations in the UK and Europe from Port Penrhyn in Bangor.

The Stone of Scone (or Stone of Destiny) is to be brought back to Westminster Abbey for the coronation of Charles III.

The stone, a block of coarse-grained, pinkish buff sandstone, was returned to Scotland in 1996, having been taken by England’s King Edward I in 1296 and used for his coronation. It had been used for centuries before that for the coronation of Scottish kings.

In England, it took on a ceremonial role in the coronation throne to become a traditional part of the crowning of British monarchs, including Queen Elizabeth II, who was crowned in 1953 and whose funeral was on 19 September 2022.

It had been built into the coronation throne in Westminster Abbey and stayed there for 700 years (apart from three months in 1950-51 when some Scottish students reclaimed it) until it was permanently returned to Scotland on Scottish patron saint St Andrew’s Day during the 700th anniversary of its removal. Its return to Scotland took place the year before the independence referendum, when the Scots voted to remain part of the United Kingdom. It has been in Edinburgh Castle since then.

Historic Environment Scotland (HES), which manages Edinburgh Castle, has confirmed the stone will be used in King Charles III's coronation. Afterwards it will return to Edinburgh Castle's Crown Room.

HES has always said: "The stone will only leave Scotland again for a coronation in Westminster Abbey."

To explore the stone in extraordinary detail, click here. 

There is more about the cultural significance of stones in Scotland in Beatrice Searle's book Stone Will Answer, published in 2023. To read a review of the book, click here.

 

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is warning companies to act now to protect employees from fatal lung diseases resulting from exposure to respirable crystalline silica (RCS) dust.

It says it will be focusing its inspections in October on companies where RCS could be a problem, which includes stone companies such as worktop fabricators where high silica content materials such as granite, engineered quartz and ceramics are used.

HSE warns that if RCS is breathed in, the particles can cause irreversible lung disease that can be fatal.

Every year, around 12,000 people in Great Britain die from work-related lung diseases linked to past exposure to hazardous substances at work.

These deaths are preventable if exposure to the risks is controlled effectively.    

By breathing it in, you can develop the following lung diseases: 

• Silicosis
  making breathing more difficult and increasing the risk of lung infections. Silicosis usually follows exposure over many years, but extremely high exposures can lead rapidly to ill health
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
  a group of lung diseases, including bronchitis and emphysema, resulting in severe breathlessness, prolonged coughing and chronic disability. It can be very disabling and is a leading cause of death
• Lung cancer
  Heavy and prolonged exposure to RCS dust can cause lung cancer. When someone already has silicosis, there is an increased risk of lung cancer. 

Watch the HSE short video on silicosis, where HSE’s Chief Medical Advisor, Professor David Fishwick, explains more about this disease.

Employers have a legal duty to put in place suitable arrangements to manage health & safety and comply with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002.

In October, HSE inspectors will be checking that companies understand the risks associated with RCS inhalation and have effective controls in place to keep workers safe. 

 HSE has refreshed its silica guidance for stone companies. Click on the links below to download it: 

• Stoneworkers - COSHH direct advice sheets
• Brick and tile silica - COSHH direct advice sheets 

Dekton has introduced two new ranges that it promises are easier for worktop fabricators to process, thanks to what it calls ‘Quick Cut Technology’ (sometimes presented as Kwik Cut).

A request by Natural Stone Specialist magazine for more information about the changes that have been made that make Dekton easier to cut have not elicited any more information, but Cosentino, the Spanish company that makes Dekton, does say that Quick Cut Technology does not alter the technical advantages that Dekton has always had, although it makes the material lighter. It says it makes cutting Dekton up to three times faster, as well as providing greater flexibility and cleaner edges. And it means tools do not wear so quickly. 

There is a video by Cosentino about Dekton Quick Cut Technology on YouTube (click here to watch it), but it doesn't provide any enlightenment about what has changed in the making of Dekton that improves its workability.

The new collections are called Kraftizen and Onirika.

Kraftizen consists of five colours with rich, deep textures reminiscent of Venetian stucco. While the eight Onirika designs continue the enduringly popular marble look, mostly whites but one black.

The Kraftizen designs have been given the names Umber, Nacre, Argentium, Micron and Albarium. The Onirika designs are called Awake, Lucid, Somnia, Neural, Trance, Vigil, Daze and Morpheus.

Dekton is A1 fire rated and can be used both indoors and outdoors for facades, paving, cladding, worktops, floors, linings and no doubt other applications. It is manufactured in large-format slabs (up to 3200mm x 1440mm) in five different thicknesses (0.4cm, 0.8cm, 1.2cm, 2cm and 3cm). All Dekton slabs incorporate material recycled from the product’s own manufacturing process. They include at least 50% recycled material.

www.dektonsurfaces.co.uk

The Kraftizen Collection

The Onirika Collection

 

Hampshire stone company stoneCIRCLE has a new GMM Litox five-axes saw thanks to support from the Leader programme, which is partly funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.

The new machine replaces a 22-year-old manual saw. Its 1000mm saw blade is the largest in the stoneCIRCLE factory.

The main motivation behind the purchase was to produce complex 3D stone pieces more accurately and faster. The 1000mm diameter blade means that the company will be able to cut blocks up to 400mm thick, which are often specified for building masonry, artwork and solid stone cantilevered stairs.

Because the saw can be programmed and does not need to be supervised, this releases the mason to carry out highly skilled finishing work on the projects as they come off the saws.

It will also reduce the amount of grinding and rubbing the masons do by hand, reducing the amount of dust created and exposure to Hand Arm Vibration from the hand tools.

Basingstoke-based stoneCIRCLE has been in business since 1968 and has grown into one of the largest stone fabricators in England, employing more than 50 people.

The company fabricates and installs stone for domestic and commercial projects, including prestigious hotels and retail stores such as Harrods, where it is involved in the ongoing refurbishment.

 

The ever-changing market in recent years has presented challenges for the stone industry as a whole, and being able to adapt to the unstable economic conditions has become necessary for Vetro Tooling, in Basildon, Essex, to keep its customers running without disruptions to their tooling requirements.

Vetro has been working closely with its suppliers and developing its own systems to prevent disruptions to supply.

Vetro is continually evolving and improving its stone tooling with products like the new range of Cosentino-approved Ace tooling. This includes bridge saw blades and drills.

Another new addition is the Swift bridge saw blade range. With its fast cutting speed and high quality finish, Swift is perfect for granite, quartzite and engineered stone. It became an instant customer favourite in field trials.

Vetro says it has had nothing but good feedback on testing both these two new ranges, and that’s what it strives to achieve over its whole range of tooling.

The new ranges sit alongside current customer favourites such as K-Line, Vetro’s premium range of CNC tooling.

Looking ahead, Vetro has some major projects in the pipeline, including website development and a new tooling catalogue.

The in-house office and marketing team has expanded significantly in the past few years and is working hard to bring these new ideas to life in the near future.

With the disruption to supply chains lately, Vetro’s workshop has become more valuable than ever. Being able to create bespoke tooling in-house and making technical adjustments to tooling based on customer specific requirements with just a few days’ lead time is id an attractive service for customers.

Because Vetro is not just a re-seller. Its workshop engineers have years of experience in the design and engineering behind the tooling for the industry, and Vetro’s research and development department is always advancing the limits of what tooling can achieve.

The company’s re-dressing of diamond tooling has also become what is known for, in both the glass and stone industries, and this service has become increasingly popular. Vetro has had to add to its in-house CNC machines over the past couple of years to keep up with the growing demand without compromising the fast turnaround time it has become famous for.

As well as the tools, Vetro sells Denver stoneworking machinery in Ireland, both north and south of the border.

Following Brexit, it has worked closely with its Irish customers to make the Brexit transition as easy for them as possible. Its sales and engineering team spend a lot of time in Ireland – for sales, consultancy and back-up services.

Whatever Irish companies want – be it tooling, machinery or engineering – Vetro is working hard to maintain the level of customer service its customers have come to expect and which Vetro accepts they deserve.

Vetro will have representatives on the Denver stand at the Marmo+Mac exhibition in Verona, Italy, 27-30 September.

Vetro says Denver has some inspiring Stone machinery and is excelling in technological advances. At Marmo+Mac, among the machine Denver is showing are the Quota Stone 3350 CNC, the new four-axes Action Monobloc Saw, and the five-axes all-purpose CNC/saw, Formula Lab. The machines on the stand will be performing simulations and Denver says it would be delighted to give readers a demonstration in Verona.

www.vetrotooling.com

The government is to cap energy prices for businesses in line with the two-year domestic cap, now called an ‘Energy Price Guarantee’, announced on 8 September, although for businesses it will only last for six months.

The new energy price cap for consumers kicks in from 1 October, restricting energy charges to an average of £2,500 a year for the next two years. This is automatic, applies to all households and is in addition to the £400 energy bills discount for households.

As businesses have not previously benefited from an energy price cap and are not always able to secure their energy price through fixed deals, many are reporting projected increases in costs of gas and electricity of more than 500%.

That is addressed by the new six-month scheme for businesses and other non-domestic energy users (including charities and public sector organisations like schools).

This is intended to protect businesses from the soaring energy costs and provide them with some certainty for planning.

After the initial six-month scheme, the Government promises on-going, focused support for vulnerable industries.

Government borrowing in the region of £100billion-£150billion will be used pay energy suppliers, many of which are earning record profits thanks to the high prices, the difference between the cap and what they would charge their customers were it not in place.

Schemes previously funded by green levies, which are suspended during the scheme, will also be funded by government borrowing during the two-year period.

At the same time the government will seek to secure new sources of energy supply, including allowing onshore fracking, which some fear causes earthquakes, more gas and oil exploration in the North Sea, and more nuclear and renewable energy generation.

The government has set a target for the UK to become a net energy exporter once again by 2040.

A review is to be held into how the UK can become a Net Zero CO₂e contributor to the atmosphere by 2050, a target enshrined in law, in an economically-efficient way without placing undue burdens on businesses or consumers.

The review will be chaired by Chris Skidmore MP and is required to report by the end of this year.