Quarry Tour

Where Does Granite Come From?
Our customers have found it helpful to see a photo tour of our vendor's granite quarry in Brazil. You will gain a better understanding of granite's unique characteristics, including its hardness, durability, and lasting beauty. (Click on the title to see the picture.)

Granite Quarry In Brazil

This granite quarry is being excavated out of the side of a mountain.

Exploding Off A Gigantic Slab (Before)

The workers have prepared a large section of granite to be broken off by use of explosives. The gigantic slab will fall on the large pile of dirt.

Exploding Off A Gigantic Slab (After)

Here is the large slab after it has fallen. Workers will jackhammer this into smaller sections which will be sent to the factory to be cut into slices and polished.

Granite Cut Into Slices

At the factory, the four foot wide slabs will be cut into thinner slabs. This gang saw acts ike a large bread slicer, cutting the large slab into slices of varying thickness.

Sawn Granite

These sawn slabs remain grouped together. This is important when your project uses more than one slab, since the slabs will have more consistent color and pattern within the group and across your project.

Resin Is Applied To Each Slab

The slabs are washed and dried. Then, resin is applied to one side, which provides an initial barrier across the stone. Once the resin dries, it will be ready for polishing. As you can see, this is the first time you can see the distinctive color and patterns of the stone.

Polishing

This large machine spins these polishing blocks across the stone with great speed and precision. Several sets of blocks are used on each slab, each increasing the smoothness of the slab.

Packaged For Shipping

As the slabs are polished, they will continue to stay together as a group. Then, the slabs are packaged, loaded into large containers, and shipped to The Granite Shop.