The Publisher’s Pen: Innovation in the Stone Industry
As I write this column, crates have been loaded and shipped to Las Vegas. And when you read these words, the show will be over, crates re-packed and many exhausted folks will begin planning for next year.
This year Stone Pro demonstrated innovation in spades. They presented four new products at the Braxton-Bragg booth. The first was the Hydraulic Beaver. If you need to put a chiseled edge on 6cm of stone or quartz, this is the machine to do it. The second is the Vacuum Hole Template. This tool uses CNC vacuum pod technology and a shop vac to enable you to drill perfectly placed holes in horizontal or vertical surfaces on smooth or textured material, and it cleans up after itself. Truly amazing!
In the visual feast department, the new Seam Setter makes all other seam setters look, well, like toys–not tools. The beauty of this beast is that it allows for easy glue removal and the independent action of each pod will take the bow out of stone better than anything else we have seen.
Last but certainly not least, is the Elipse Polishing System. A little over a year ago, Barry Brandt, owner of Stone Pro, called me and began asking questions about diamond polishing pads. As we talked, it became clear to me that Barry had a great idea but it was not clear to me that it could work. So I drove to Effingham, Illinois to learn more.
After a great deal of hard work, several iterations of design, long hours with patent lawyers, and many hours of testing, the elipse polishing system was born.
Innovation is often defined as the process of taking the knowledge that you have and applying it to the problem that you face. The problem with diamond polishing is that when you have a tool that creates a rotary motion, you will spend time removing swirls and scratches that the rotary motion puts into the surface.
As wood-workers discovered years ago, an orbital or elliptical motion minimizes this problem–creating a better finish much faster. But when you work with stone or quartz, you need water for cooling and dust control. And you need to put a certain amount of pressure on a diamond pad to get it to do its job. Existing random orbital sanders stall with pressure and lack water delivery systems.
Barry was thinking about this problem while in a tree stand with his bow and arrow waiting for a deer to stroll by. The idea of achieving an elliptical pattern through an off-center hole in a backer pad somehow came to him. The very real problem of vibration also appeared to him and this is where many would be tempted to give up. His next idea was a car tire and wheel—achieve balance through weight!
There were a great many other details that had to be figured out, including using a different type of resin bond, different types of diamonds, higher concentration of diamonds, and using a CNC machine to individually machine the backer pads, but those are all just the details of execution.
So, regardless of what you are doing, keep thinking. Innovation can occur at any time, even in a tree stand.
Have a good read.
– Rich Hassert