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Heavy equipment are used to transport
the blocks of stone from the quarry to the processing yard
where they are sawed into tiles, slabs. Secondary sawing reduces
the slabs into dimensional masonry. More intricate work can
be carried out on profiling saws and planing and polishing
machines and of course by hand. Hand working of stone, however,
retains an essential place in the last stages of processing,
when highly skilled masons work the more detailed stones to
their finished form.
Sophisticated methods bring better results
than brute force and modern technology can be applied. The
aim of using latest technology programs is to make the sector
more internationally oriented and to solve the problems of
quarrying and processing so that the material which is of
high quality and needs little care could be more widely used
in buildings and other construction works. The natural surfaced
blocks are cut into pieces of varying thickness and sizes,
as required. The surface is then given the required textures
with different finishes.
Honed or polished surfaces are achieved by grinding the cut
face with successively finer grades of abrasives. Sandstone
and limestone are often available in honed finish. Marble
and other harder limestone can be polished. To achieve the
true color and pattern of natural stone, polished surface
is the most popular among different types of stone surfaces
as it does not change the nature of the stone.
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