At the Cambria manufacturing facility in Belle Plaine, Minnesota, we learned the family-owned company started after purchasing a failed quartz-countertop business in northern Minnesota called Technimar Industries. The deal included the processes of Italian inventor Marcello Toncelli. Toncellis had developed a method to mass-produce engineered stone out of quartz, in whatever amount was required, with the same color and with the same structure, at the touch of a button. He made the quartz surfaces using machines he invented, including vibro-compression under vacuum, a patented technology used today by most engineered-stone manufacturers, including Cambria.
Careful Material Selection
To keep up with demand, the plant runs 24/7. The manufacturing process begins when pure quartz is delivered from quarries throughout North America in large bags. After inspection of each bag, samples are sent to the lab upstairs for testing. In this lab, technicians also experiment with colors and patterns and test random samples of finished slabs for abrasion, strength on impact, and breakage.
After the lab approves a bag of quartz, workers ticket the bag for use in production. Cambria uses quartz in different sizes, so particles fit together when the quartz is compacted, slabs are free of voids, and the finished material is nonporous. The finest grade of quartz, which has an almost flour-like consistency, arrives in bulk tanks and is transferred into large steel silos in an enclosed room.
Production
Over the years, Cambria's research-and-development team has refined Toncelli's touch-of-a-button process to ensure consistency in color, pattern, and quality in each of the designs. The recipe for a batch of Cambria, which produces about ten slabs, is entered into a computer. This mixture, composed of 93-percent quartz, is weighed and drawn from various-size hoppers, then poured into an enormous mixer with a liquid binder that comprises the final seven percent.
Next, they add a colorant. Once mixed, the dry, pliable material—now the consistency of cookie dough—is dumped onto a conveyor, which dribbles the material onto a large black rubber mat with turned-up edges. The machine places a similar rubber mat on top. The slab then goes into the press, where it's subjected to compaction vibration under a vacuum. This compaction pulls out all the air and compresses the mixture.
Throughout production, workers monitor the automated process on computer screens. They remove the slab's top cover when compaction is done and check each slab by touching its surface to ensure correct consistency. They then shove the slab into one of the shelves of a massive oven for curing. Once cured, the product is transferred to an area where a machine trims the slab's ends and sides and shaves a thin layer off the top and bottom.
Finishing
The slab then enters the polishing machine. Water sprays the slab continually during polishing to keep dust to a minimum and cool and preserve the polishing tools. Water systems buried beneath the polishing lines capture, filter, and reuse all of the water.
Once polished, the slab is transferred to an inspection area. Workers check each piece for scratches, impurities, veining, and pattern, working off of a "standard," a proven, perfect slab they match against. Once approved, each slab receives an inventory-tracking bar code on a tag affixed to one end. A giant automated arm moving on a steel ceiling armature picks up and stacks the slabs for pickup.
The slabs are then cut into the precise profiles or shapes for the installers and inspected again. Inside large metal boxes, automated high-pressure water jets cut the curved edges of the profiles; precision blades cut the straight lines. In the finishing area, workers cut custom edges using hand chisels for a rough-stone look. Nearby, workers use clamps with vacuum pads to dry-fit every job's profiles together to simulate a job's installation.
The job's pieces are then set up on tables at the back of the facility for inspection. They look for defects related to fabrication, polish, and size per the installer's specifications in the job packet. Cardboard faces are cut to cover and protect the profiles; each piece is taped up, labeled, and readied for pickup.
