Columbia Gorge Stoneworks

 

The Process of

Making stone

Switchplates
   
 

The first step is to cut up the stone into the correct size of blanks to make switchplates from.  We use blue tape and a china marker to indicate any scratches or flaws that we need to cut around.

  

This photo shows one of the reasons why we ask for extra stone.  Normally we can get 8 switchplates from a 12" tile but were hard pressed to get 3 from this one.
 

Here is what an order looks like when it is ready to go to the router.

  

This is what it looks like after the router.

 
 

After they are routered out we bake them at 140 degrees to remove any moisture in preparation for the penetrating epoxy.  We then apply the epoxy and put them back in the oven for a few hours to fully cure before polishing.  We can not say enough about the epoxy.  Making stone switchplates is doing a lot with a small piece of stone and for some stones the epoxy is a requirement.  Before we started using the epoxy we declined making some orders because the finished switchplates were too fragile.  Now if we can router them out we are confident they will be fine after treating them with the epoxy.  Even switchplates that were broken in half work fine after gluing them together, which we have done as  free repairs.

  
 

This is an Ubatuba toggle plate being treated with the epoxy.

  

Here you can see where the epoxy soaked into a crack that was barely visible.  After polishing the crack wasn't even noticeable.  This stone is Rosa Verona which is brittle and has many fissures in it.  Without the epoxy we would not be able to make switchplates from this stone.
 

A small batch of cover plates after being epoxied.

 A few orders that are ready to be polished.
 

Although much of the process is automated the stone switchplates that we make are by no means mass produced.  There is still a lot of hand work involved and we take great care when cutting the switchplate blanks out of the tile or slab.