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Has anyone seen a published workmanship standard from any of the Estone Manufacturers?
To indicate to large scale customers what thet can expect in regards to material quality characteristics such as flatness, squarness, porosity, paralleism, color consistency, scratch depth, sink, thickness tolerance, surface finish values (profilometer measurements), ect
I’ve seen material properties like water absortion, fleural strength & such but not manufacturer’s process capabilities.
Any help is appreciated.
I can’t remember seeing anything like that. If I were you I would contact Cambria or Silestone. Cambria has Cambria University that you may get some good information.
Let me know if you find anything.
I don’t think Cambria has any specs on what is expected when it comes to the quality of the edge profile. If they did then we wouldn’t be re-polishing the edges on some horrible looking tops that they sent to us yesterday.
DuPont has most of what you are asking for in the material “as delivered” specs to the fabricator. I am not sure exactly what they call this document but I know they have it. It is covered in the AZI training program complete with pictures.
I would guess that since Cambria was closly tied to DuPont at about the same time this was developed, they may have it as well, not sure.
Stanley:
The goodies you are looking for are not available online, only in print to authorized installers/fabricators.
I’ve got a copy of the Zodiac stuff, but I think you may be making too much of it, especially if “large customers” means commerical accounts. Cheapest, cheapest, cheapest is all that counts there.
Joe
Stanley, welcome to the Fabricator Network, tell us a little about yourself and your company and you will find it easier gain the information you want.
Sure, I’m a research assistant in the Material Sciences Department at University of Wisconsin- Madison. We are working with a corporate partner on a grant related to green initiatives with new safe post consumer building materials.
I was trying to quickly determine what are acceptable processing standards for countertop like materials.
We’ve been in contact with most the major Engineered Stone manufacturers since so we’ve acquired this info. Thanks for the feedbacks.
Stanley
Stanley, I’m not sure how manufacturing a countertop material with fossil fuel is green, just saying………….
Norm
Silestone has their ECO product, which is made using vegtable oil in making the resin, rather than petroleum based.
It also includes recycled material.. ie glass etc. Other companies are at least looking into something similar. What we need is a good rating system, 3rd party, that will be honest as to how “greeen” green products really are. Is it green if you ship it half way around the world? Or ship materials across the country? If you ship a green product, in a non green way, is it still green? If a green product las’s half as long as a non green product, is it really “green” ? Lots of questions, few answers.AS far as color consistancy, I know of at least one large mfg that will say, if we shipped it its A Grade so no credit for non color matched material…….Every sheet is unique, so, no claims for color matching. Would love to see industry standards.
Wags, that I did not know. Do you think these “green” products will come down in price once the patents run out and other companies start duplicating them?
Wags,
You bring up an interesting point. There needs to be some independant party, (NO, NOT the govt!) that determines and assigns “green Pionts” or something.
If you build a mildly gas guzzling car in the most efficient production facility in the world, is it “green”? How about if you build a fairly gas efficient car in the most wasteful factory that could ever exist?
I do know that to get a building certified “green” …
– There are different levels of green for the building.
– The building must be maintained green or it will loose its clasification.
– A material does get some of its green points for how far it has to travel to the job site.
– The site super, architect and some of the other major players must be certified green.There is much more to this and it is still being defined.
There was a major change in green status this July 6th and much of that is still being determined.It is all good stuff, we can only hope there will be common sense in it as well.
The Silestone is not priced as high as some of the other “Green” Products. I think the price is where it is, because they can. But is a product green if you use recycled product but then ship it 1000, or 2,000 miles to get it to the factory? Both real world cases, I won’t embarrass the companies by naming them.
Once again, when the government gets involved it only screws things up. The government mandates new governmental buildings Must be “Green”. Knowing that a company produces a “green” product. Or, in many cases they set up another company to “certify” this product is “green”. Or, in some cases they just say, its green. There is no independant check, there is no “real” independant check. I once had a product in stock, it was 18% green. I got a release that said, its now 40% + recycled.. what changed? Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.
The price will come down when they have to lower the price. Just like gobal warming, while a shred of truth, most is false scare tactics. I believe in being responsible with our planet, and using materials that will have lower impact on all of us, but, is shipping recycled glass 1000 miles adding it to concrete that is mined in a open pit and then shipping it 3000 miles really enviromentally friendly?
Or, in a real world case I was part of. A company in the eastern third of the US, flew an employee to Phoenix, to pick up material we had in stock. They rented a truck and drove it back to the East.. Fabricated the tops then drove them back to Phoenix to be installed in a “green” project. When asked why? they said, we get a rebate from the East company….and it was part of a government entity that the tops were installed in. Guess they didn’t care what they cost, since our quote was much less than what they paid, it was more important they got their “rebate”.
This is a food facility where they toute how all the food is grown within 400 miles of Phoenix… Tell me we don’t need someone with credibility to oversee all this flim flam taking place in the name of “Green”.
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