You may not know what can be gained from custom countertop fabrication. Cutting natural stone by hand is one way to fabricate countertops; however it can also lead to human error or miscalculation. Architectural Stone Works (ASW) also deploys our state-of-the-art digital fabrication facility. Our facility gives us full digital capabilities making us one of the most highly technical shops in the Mid-South.
Transporting Stone Slabs
Stone slabs are extremely cumbersome and heavy, which makes moving slabs daily a difficult process. ASW uses forklifts to transport the larger slabs, and the smaller fabricated tops are moved by hand.
Fabrication Process
ASW fabricates and installs granite, marble, and other natural stones, as well as manufactured quartz products, large format tile slabs and ultracompact surfaces. Our fully digital process for a typical job follows these steps:
- The client makes their stone selection, then templating is done at the job site utilizing the stone industry’s fastest and most accurate digital templating system. This system is a laser template, which replaces hand measuring or cardboard templates. This in turn saves trees and reduces the chance of human error. So in essence, you go GREEN when you choose to use a digital fabrication shop!
- The digital templates are then sent via email to the CNC (computer numerically controlled) programmers back at our shop, and they use those templates to program our multiple CNC machines.
- The CNC machines precision shapes the stone slabs into the desired countertop, including profiling and polishing edges to customer specifications.
- All pieces are hand-finished to ensure final quality and finish that machines are unable to detect.
Our digitalized process streamlines and accelerates the fabrication process, which reduces human error and improves quality. This process also allows us to lower costs and maximize uptime.
ASW is able to manipulate the digital imagery to make sure that the design of your kitchen/bath countertop will match up seamlessly to the chosen slab(s) you have chosen for your project. Basically, we will manipulate as much of the stone slab as possible, being extremely careful with seam placement in your project design. This process also enables us, when your project requires multiple stone slabs, to ensure that each stone slab’s veining matches directionally from slab to slab in your project design. There is a science to this computerized process, which our team has mastered!
Utilizing digital templating enables fabricators to gain control of a difficult process and places the decisions and double checks all on one person in the office, instead of a template person in the field, and multiple people back in the shop. Again, the use of this process also enables a fabricator to reduce the amount of time spent on each project and increase the number of projects that can be added to a daily schedule.
ASW employs highly skilled technicians who have gone through different forms of training in order to master machine skills and maximize productivity of our fully digital fabrication shop. This training includes not only programming and operating the machinery, but also maintenance of the machinery.
Once your countertops have been fabricated, we then perform quality control over the finished stone countertops where they are assembled temporarily and checked for any potential imperfections. Seams and profiles are checked for their consistency and quality, and a final check of the dimensions is completed. When the quality control process is complete, the new countertops are ready for delivery and installation.
ASW utilizes some of the newest and best tools in the industry to create our kitchen and bath countertops. Our fully digital fabrication shop ensures that our countertops are made with the highest standards in the stone industry. Our stone slabs can be fabricated to meet each client’s unique kitchen and bath design.