Page 29 - Demo

Slippery rock Gazette
September 2019|29
A WHOLE OTHER LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE,
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• New turbo design for fast clean cuts • Cooling holes limit overheating
• Quad holes for flush cut adapters.
AVAILABLE AT
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Thermal Forming Quartz Slabs for Fun and Profit
Continued from page 9
Not all colors of engineered quartz can be formed, though — only mate- rial with very tight quartz grains. For Caesarstone products, this includes the 2,000, 4,000 and 5,000 series slabs.
It is important to note you cannot use material with glass content in it. If you are not sure, check the manu- facturer’s content specs. Engineered quartz containing glass (including recycled glass products) will shatter under the bending process — a poten- tial dangerous situation.
The hot water source can be a simple as three or four turkey fryers boiling water, or as complicated as a custom bath. As long as you can boil water it will work. You will also need a laser thermometer to check the water temperature.
Safety should always come first. Make sure to work in a well-ventilated
area, with good drainage. Wear pro- tective gear at all times. Heat resistant gloves and eye protection are a must; boots and shop aprons are optional.
In constructing custom bend
projects, I always find a box joint is better than a miter joint for this type of application. It gives you a little more wiggle room to produce tighter seams. I just overcut the top part of the joint, extend the top flange, and shape after limiting the pieces.
Wooden forms to bend and clamp material to are important for the pro- cess. If you’re not able to make your own, most mill workers can for a fee. The photos below show a well-de- signed custom form made by a milling shop, shown in use during the bending process. It slots together, with cut-outs built in for places to securely to clamp
the piece being shaped. Strap clamps will also work for the clamping pro- cess. Once the piece has cooled and set you need to immediately glue or build into your final shape.
Why learn to thermal form? It is hard enough to make a profit in the stone business. The math is simple: you can make ten times more on custom shaped jobs than on other projects. Visit www.youtube.com/ watch?v=je3-CSw_W5c for a demonstration of the process.
Custom-shaped top constructed with box seams. The excess ma- terial is removed with a grinder.
Milling reduces the thickness to
between 1/4 and 1/8-inch. The tighter the curve, the thinner the work piece will need to be.
Brutting and a box-built see-saw.
Right, top: The water needs to be boiling to make sure it doesn’t cool too much in transfering from the pot and pouring on the work piece. This is a job for three workers: one to pour, and two to evenly bend the piece, and tighten the clamps.
Below: Heating and clamping in process, and completed. Allow two to three hours for the piece to set and cool – longer in hot and humid con- ditions. Leave clamped until ready to use. Once unclamped, the resin in the material will start to revert to its original flat shape.