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Posts
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What are the major pitfalls in starting in the stone business? I can’t afford to spend tons of money, but want to start installing quartz and then move to fabrication.
What do I need to watch out for? If you had to do it over, what would you do different?
Andy,
I started by going through the Zodiaq training to do installs, learned a lot about the product but no real hands on experience. After watching several jobs being installed I realize the obvious, it is just a countertop and it installs like any other. Fit it to the wall, pull your seams and glue it down. The big difference is the weight, the stuff is HEAVY!
To me Quartz is very much like laminate, it scratches and chips and you can do very little to hide it, the seams show and you are limited in how you can fabricate the stuff. I have installed several jobs now but for the most part I have my fabrication company do the installs, I just don’t want to kill my installers, or myself, trying to carry the stuff. I just had an island installed and I thought it was going to seriously hurt the two guys bringing it into the house.
My last two jobs had flaws in the material and from what I gather it is not uncommon to have that problem. I really don’t like the stuff but I feel I need to offer it with the rest of my products. I will educate my customers on all the products and let them decide.
If I had to do it over again I would not have invested so much money in tooling and supplies to do light fabrication and installation of Quartz and Granite.
Shane
Al sent me a list of what he used and said that about $1000 would get you enough installation tools to get started. Is that about what you estimate?
Andy, If Al doesn’t mind can I get that list? We are in the discussion mode for quartz and are curious on the basic startup stuff as well.
Thanks, Robert
I spent a little more than that…okay…alot more..but I was sucked into a “This is what you need if you want to do this work” sales pitch. Listen to Al as far as what the minimum is that you need, a thousand sounds about right.
Shane
I am working on an article that Al put together about his first stone job and the stuff it takes to do it. I will ask about the list. Probably not a problem, but I’ll check first.
Andy-
If your putting an article together, i can wait tell then if you are busy. I am in no rush.
Robert
Andy, We install 2-3 stone jobs per day. 1000 bucks is kinda tight. I would budget 1500. We havnt really found any pitfalls to installing other than you are kinda at the mercy of the fabricator. We do silestone and our fabricator builds everything square. We have had to take some steps to compensate for this. I will list our process below.
1. Template job with lt-55
2. Work drawing and then email to fabricator
3. Cut template on vinyl plotter
4. Bring job to shop for substrate and fit to template
5.Install
Not to hard but it would be nice if we didnt have to cut vinyl templates for every job. It would also be nice if the fabricator took care of the substrate but for 50% margins I guess we have to give a little.
Travis,
I don’t quite understand – why is the fabricator building everything square when you are emailing them a drawing? Are they using a CNC? Substrate on stone – at the risk of sounding stupid, I’m going to have to say I am totally confused on that one.
Andy,
I have no clue about the cost, but know that we started out with little more than a wet grinder, sturdy cart, and a good set of ratcheting clamps.
Have a nice evening,
Seth
Andy,
We also started out with and still use a pair of lifting clamps similar to these: http://www.granitecitytool.com/showitem.cfm?itemnum=85&catnum=164&pcatnum=0. The cart I was talking about looks something like this one: http://www.granitecitytool.com/showitem.cfm?itemnum=95&catnum=19&pcatnum=80&n=Abaco%20Self%20Locking%20Slab%20Trolley.
Seth
Andy,
You probably already know this, but, buy the Gorilla Grips. Everything I have seen and heard says that they are THE way to go to get tight seams. They probably put you over the $1000 total but, are worth it ( I hope!!!! Mine are coming in on Thursday)
Also, we plan to use them for 3cm and 1/2 inch SS as well. Just don’t get carried away when you lock them down.
As for me, we did our first granite install for well under a grand. Not overly well tooled, but for a “normal” kitchen it went fine.
Grinder, diamond blades/pads,razor blades, Integra e-stone bonder, and some help toting it in.
Chris
Seth, Yes my fabricator uses a cnc to edge profile and sink holes but all tops are cut on a bridge saw. You are as confused as me as to why they build it all square when I send them a file.
Substrate. Well its like this… 2cm material with a stacked edge. Then solid 3/4″ mdf substrate to get us up on top of the cabinets. Sames as ss except the thickness and stone is solid substrate instead of strips
Travis,
Thanks for answering my questions. That is weird that your fabricator does not rout the walls to follow your drawing while the tops are up on the CNC to be profiled. It sounds like things are working out well for you though and you are still making a good amount of money on the jobs, so nothing hurt there. The only thing that we have used 2cm material for is fireplace surrounds and splash. We did have a commercial job before we started fabricating our own stone tops that had a stacked edge, but it used 3cm material and lipped down over the millwork. We use all 3cm material for tops. I can see why you’d like to replace a 1-1/2″ thick top with another 1-1/2″ thick top, but it is common here on countertop replacements to shim up the 3cm top as necessary to meet the existing tile, etc. and then install trim below that matches the cabinets to cover the gap.
Have a nice evening,
Seth
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