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| Granite's the Fashion at this Area Shop by Mitch Meador Lawton Constitution Staff Writer
FLETCHER, OKLAHOMA - Most people consider granite suitable material for headstones and other permanent markers. When Chris Smith looks at it, he sees counters and tabletops. The Wichita Mountains Estates resident has been in business for two years as 'The Granitesmith" (pun intended). Until recently, he was cutting granite the hard way -- "stone age equipment" is the way his part-time helper, Vince Cambron of Lawton, describes it. All that changed this month. Smith's father, Bill Smith of Fletcher, helped him to install a bridge saw at his workshop in downtown Fletcher. It took them four long, hard days to get it bolted into place. It now has the distinction of being the only one of its kind in Southwest Oklahoma.The saw uses a laser to guide its diamond blade down the line to be cut. The blade itself has to be cooled by water while it's running to keep it from breaking. Smith added an innovation of his own, a Ford mud flap, on the back of blade to keep the water from shooting onto the wall. The cutting board is a mixture of mortar and marble dust. The marble dust acts like ball bearings to allow maneuvering of the heavy granite slabs by hand. The board can be rotated to change the direction of the cut. It can also be tilted up to assist loading and unloading. Smith said he wanted a saw that was made in the United States and found the two best places to buy granite saws were in Minnesota and Knoxville, Tenn. He visited the Sawing Systems plant at Knoxville and liked what he saw well enough to spring for the smallest size they make. The company makes blades up to 144 inches in diameter; his is 18 inches. "I don't need to cut anything more than 4 inches thick, so this is just great," Smith said. As an artisan he handles all the natural stone -- marble, slate, onyx. He even does custom cutting for people who bring their own stone. "We do more of the commercial or artistic-type table surfaces, 3 centimeters thick," he said. Though its polished surface resembles marble, granite is much tougher. Smith said marble is great in bathrooms but does not hold up in the kitchen because it scratches too easily. Marble can be damaged by moisture, whereas granite sheds water. Marble will break along its veins, but it is easy to repair. It's much harder to break granite, but more difficult to repair. The only maintenance needed for granite is a little carnauba wax every six months. Though the surrounding hills might seem a ready source of raw material, Smith said the rock around here is too brittle to cut as thin as he wants it. To be usable, it must be less than 400 million years old. The nearest quarry that meets the requirements is at Mineral Wells, Texas, but Smith is bringing in granite from all over the world. That's because there are more than 300 granite mines in the world, and each variety of granite produced has a different color -- or even two, depending on where the miners quarry. Designers thus have lots of colors from which to choose. "The piece that we're cutting today is from Finland," Smith said. Called "Emerald Pearl," it will go into four kitchens, three bathrooms and a couple of tables. Another variety comes from Pakistan. Streaked with pinks, blues and grays, it goes by the name of "Raw Silk." "Absolute Black" comes from South Africa, and Dakota Mahogany" is a Mount Rushmore product. A full slab weighs from 1,400 to 1,500 pounds, so Smith uses a fork-lift most of the time to get them onto the table. He has a cherry picker with a "slab grabber" that clamps down onto the top of the slab. It picks the slab off an A-frame cart, then a helper slides the cart out of the way, and Smith moves the cherry picker forward to the tilted table. The bridge saw is capable of cutting circular tabletops up to six feet in diameter, but for custom cutting, pieces are set on a two-ton hydraulic tilting table that Smith designed and built. He said the pieces lock into place, and it's a lot safer trying to saw by hand than any other way. Smith said he got interested in his present career by chance. A few years ago he was working as a manager at Boeing Aircraft at Denton, Texas. He got to eating dinner at the same mom-and-pop restaurant every night, and he struck up an acquaintance with a man who always came there at the same time. "We got to finding out what each other did, and he said come on down sometime," Smith said. Smith took him up on that offer and kept going back for weeks to absorb the man's 50 years of experience. "I decided this was what I wanted to do. It was too much fun," he said. The building where he works was a Chevrolet dealership in 1925 and a Kaiser-Frazier dealership in 1948-49. Since then it's been a gas station, body shop and a variety of other things. It has no phone, however. Basically, it is an artistic studio, so if anyone wants to contract the Granitesmith's services, it would be best to contact a decorator, call Smith at home, (580) 529-2747, e-mail him at info@granitesmith.com, or visit his web site at www.granitesmith.com. |
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