The Natural Stoneshow 2013 / 30th April - 2nd May 2013

For those who see challenging economic times as an opportunity to gain market share from competitors who don’t, the Natural Stone Show at ExCeL London 15-17 March is the ideal place to finalise investment decisions with like-minded suppliers.

As well as all the stone – including more British stone than ever this time – the Natural Stone Show offers stone companies the chance to make sure they have the latest cost-cutting tools and machinery with the most up-to-date systems for a competitive edge and better margins.

One of the most dynamic of the stone industry machinery, tools and consumables suppliers is Andy Bell, whose National Masonry business based in Bishop Auckland has grown to such an extent that he split it into separate companies at the end of 2009. National Masonry now sell tools, consumables and reconditioned machinery while the new Stone Machinery UK Ltd concentrate on selling new machines.

The two companies have the largest stand at the Natural Stone Show, F60.
Andy says recession has been the perfect boost for Stone Machinery UK. “It suits our style and has forced potential buyers of machinery to look beyond their usual machinery dealer. We sell machinery at low margins because during the good years we paid for our premises so we have no overheads to speak of and can offer unrivalled deals on both machinery and consumables.”
Stone Machinery UK’s latest move is an association with ScandInvent, the Swedish manufacturers of the innovative C3 and C4 workcentres, the E3500 edge polisher and the novel SX5 cantilevered bridge saw.

National Masonry, meanwhile, have now joined forces with the massive German wholesalers Weha to offer in the UK the 21,000 products across 17 product ranges that Weha supply, many made by or especially for Weha.
The new Stone Machinery UK company was established when Andy Bell gained exclusivity of MarmoMeccanica edge polishers at the end of 2009. He says he has more than doubled sales of them.

He has plans in place to bring the same sort of success to the ScandInvent C3 and C4 CNC machines. They are entry and mid-level workcentres, pitched at the right level for the current market when many companies are finding it difficult to raise finance.

Glenn Groom, ScandInvent’s General Manager in the UK, says ScandInvent approached Stone Machinery UK because many of ScandInvent’s customers had also bought MarmoMeccanica edge polishers. He repeatedly heard the names of Stone Machinery UK and Andy Bell from masonry companies, which led him to believe Stone Machinery would be a useful company for ScandInvent to work with.

The main contact for ScandInvent C3 and C4 CNC workcentres is now Stone Machinery UK. ScandInvent  will continue to focus on sales of the edge polisher, which Stone Machinery will not be pushing because of the conflict with their MarmoMeccanica agency.

Stone Machinery UK have also now added the whole MarmoMeccanica bridge saw range to their UK offering, but believe the unusual ScandInvent SX5 saw will complement that range rather than compete with it.

The latest saw from MarmoMeccanica is a monolithic, 3.6tonne heavy duty machine, fully automatic with a tilting table, laser, turning head and touch screen controls. It will sell in the UK at approximately £36,000 – and the first one off the production line came to the UK because Stone Machinery UK sold it before it was even built.

Andy Bell says the Italian Mondial Mec bench saws he has been selling successfully for 18 years also continue to be popular and sell well. “They are strong, reliable, simple and economically priced. It’s a winning combination.”
Another of the machinery suppliers who have continued to forge ahead are D Zambelis, based in Essex, who have enjoyed considerable success with the Spanish Gisbert range of bridge saws, monoblocks, workcentres and edge polishers that they introduced at the Natural Stone Show last time. You can see them this time on stand B20.

Being at the lower end of the price scale and with the Spanish being willing to build their machines to bespoke dimensions to fit into customers’ workshops, the Gisbert range has quickly found a market in the UK and has continued to be popular even in the downturn.

The latest from Gisbert is a new CNC workcentre, the FG3000. It fits in at the top of their range, although it is the smaller FG150 or 200 that have sold particularly well in the UK.

The three-axes FG 150 has proved popular because it can take the normal range of CNC tools and can make a sink cut-out in a single pass. Tool change is manual, but is achieved with a simple push of a button, the tools being snapped into position by pneumatics. Since the launch, a 4º tilt has been added to the head for producing inclined drainers.

The machine was developed with the UK market in mind and Stella Zambelis spent a week in Spain with Gisbert to make sure it had the features wanted by her customers.

Zambelis have also now taken on distribution of the Italian Marmoelettromeccanica Master 2800 and Master 3500 worktop miller-routers and original tooling, and the range of Achilli workshop machines and handling equipment that proved so successful for nearly 40 years for AJ Lopez & Co.
Distributorship of the Achilli range became available when AJ Lopez closed down in October following the death of proprietor Cesare Lopez.

Phillip Collins, who worked with Cesare for many years, continues to provide the technical back-up for the Achilli machines with which he is so familiar. Zambelis have further expanded their machinery aftercare / training service by tieing up with Kirk Sime, a UK-based CNC engineer who has spent many years installing and providing training for CNC machines.

Several of the other ranges sold by Lopez have been taken over by Apex Grange, who are based inside the M25 at Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, and will be on stand J20 at ExCeL.

They include the Coor & Kleever floor crystallizing system that includes Kleever Floor polishers, liquids K1, K2, and K3 and all the accessories, Abrasivos Aguila diamond products, and the Montolit range that includes block cutters and guillotines.

From the beginning of January, Apex Grange also became main UK distributors for Fila surface care products. Fila have a large distribution network throughout Europe for their comprehensive range and Apex Grange have every intention of making them a leading brand within the UK.
Apex Grange have taken on Wedi building boards, Tenax resin and chemical products, Sia abrasives (as a second range to run in line with their Sait abrasives) and Fein Power Tools, including polishers, grinders and dust extraction systems.

Yet another of the former Lopez ranges, Bellinzoni chemicals, has been taken on by the Waters Group. Waters already sell Akemi sealers, polishers and other chemicals but say taking over the Bellinzoni products provides continuity of service to those stone processors who prefer them.
The Waters Group and the French suppliers of their main range of machinery, Thibaut, have three stands at the Natural Stone Show this year, A1, B1 and P1.

Like most of the machinery manufacturers, Thibaut have added an integral vacuum lifting system for moving cut pieces of stone out of the way of subsequent cuts to improve the yield of finished product from slabs, but the French manufacturers have also added a reciprocating blade to their TC650 saw. It automatically lowers into position when needed to take over from the disc to cut perfectly square inside corners that go up to the line but not beyond it on cut outs.

Thibaut and the Waters Group have been at every Natural Stone Show since the exhibition was launched in 1995. As well as supporting Thibaut, the Waters Group will be showing their wide range of products for processing, finishing and handling stone.

One of the latest introductions from the Waters Group is the keenly-priced Farnese mitre saw made in Australia. This new saw has been designed to work in conjunction with the Mitre Forma clamps that the Waters Group sell.
The mitre saw is fast and easy to use with minimal training. A straight edge is achieved by a stop on the front edge and pneumatic clamps that flatten the stock against the table. The saw is 3,850 x 600mm with a cutting stroke of 3,250mm using a 350mm blade on a 3.7kW three-phase spindle.
Newcomers to the machinery supply sector exhibiting at the Natural Stone Show for the first time are Finnish manufacturers Kasins (stand A25). They supply off-the-shelf, value-for-money machines that have all been given the names of animals– such as the £20,000 Monkey saw.

Their latest launch is the Lion 1900, a compact face polishing machine with a work area up to 1900mm x 3500mm. It is quick to install as it requires no foundations and because it has been developed in conjunction with stone workers in Finland, Kasins say it is particularly user friendly and easy to operate.

Another first time exhibitor is Breton UK on stand A40. Breton machinery has been seen at the Natural Stone Show in ExCeL London before, of course, but previously it was being shown by Ebor. With Ebor having been bought by the American glass product giants CR Laurence, Italian company Breton decided to form their own distribution company in the UK in association with Carl Sharkey, who has been establishing an American laser templating device in Europe as Laser Products Europe for the past few years.

Carl continues to run Laser products Europe (and the latest developments of the lasers will also be on show on the stand) but is now also running Breton Machinery UK. He is now based in the same premises as another stone processing equipment supplier, Combined Masonry Supplies in Bradford, Yorkshire, who Carl used to work for.

Combined Masonry Supplies have represented the German Kolb machinery company, but Kolb went into Administration last year. They have been bought but it is not yet clear what their future direction might be.

CR Lawrence of Europe have opened an impressive new 7,000m2 warehouse and head offices in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, from where stock is available for immediate delivery.

They remain committed to the stone sector and have established CRL Stone to supply it with a wide range of tools, consumables and accessories for processors that they listed in an impressive 172-page Stone catalogue published last year. You will be able to see some of them on their stand (F1) at ExCeL. They will, incidentally, also be showing the CaesarStone quartz surfaces they sell in the UK.

There are some interestingly innovative items among the thousands of products in the CRL Stone range as well as all the products needed on a day-to-day basis – polishers and grinders, backing pads, diamond blades, wet & dry polishing products, bridge saw blades, grooving and milling blades, tapes, adhesives and fillers, care & protection products, CNC tooling and much more.

David Beckett, Director of CRL Stone, says: “This catalogue demonstrates our commitment to bringing our customers the most complete line of stone tools and accessories ever. From diamond blades to CNC tooling, to adhesives and fillers, it features thousands of quality products at competitive prices. This is the only catalogue you will need for your stone business.”  
The catalogue includes the ADI stone tooling range and the Akemi range of fillers and adhesives that CRL Stone distribute exclusively in the UK.
The split with Breton was amicable because the last thing CRL Stone wanted was any inconvenience to customers who had bought Breton machines from them.

As well as losing Breton to Carl Sharkey, CRL also lost technician John Hatzer, who decided to stay with the Breton machines that he knows so well.
Establishing Breton Machinery UK was a major move for Carl but it is paying off. He sold three CNC workcentres in the first three months of Breton Machinery UK – an S/NC600 an NC260 and one of the new generation lower price (£95,000) NC Quartz CNCs before they even went into production.
Carl attributes the successes to being in the right place at the right time. Two of the orders came from customers who had bought templating machines from him, including one of the new photo-template systems, and one was an existing Breton customer who originally asked if there were any second-hand machines available. Carl says he is not getting involved with sales of used machines.

To complement the CNC workcentres and saws from Breton, Carl Sharkey is now also selling diamond tooling from Tyrolit Vincent as their sole agent in the UK.

Another newcomer to the stone machinery supply sector since the last Natural Stone Show is Roccia Machinery, formed by Pisani’s former machinery sales manager, Derrick Fretwell, after Pisani made him redundant in 2009. He has taken over most of the major brands formerly sold by Pisani, including GMM saws and Cemar edge polishers (Cemar having been bought by GMM in 2008).

Arran Langford, who also sold machinery for Pisani, joined Derrick in Roccia and another Pisani man will have joined them by the time the Natural Stone Show opens on 15 March.

Roccia have moved into a new 230m2 warehouse and offices in Derbyshire that is now their headquarters. The company was formed with the backing of venture capital from Paul Coggins and Matthew Gilbert of City Business Finance, although City Business Finance continue to provide finance for stone companies wherever they buy their machinery and will be happy to talk to anyone looking for finance at the Stone Show.

As well as GMM, Roccia also sell Bideseimpianti wire saws, Helios CNC workcentres, TechnoSplit guillotines, Socomac materials handling equipment and small saws, and Manzelli Lifestyle vacuum lifts and cranes.
Derrick says Roccia are beating their projections and sold as much in the first six months of Roccia’s existence as they had budgeted to sell in the whole year.

CNC machinery companies CMS Brembana on stand A50, Intermac on B50 and Prussiani on B56 will be hoping to stimulate the recent increase in interest they have seen in the market for their machines, while Harbro Supplies hope to have concluded negotiations that will enable them to introduce some exciting new products to the UK stone processing sector on stand B60.

And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. A whole array of companies exhibiting at ExCeL are introducing a vast number of products to make processing stone faster, cleaner, more efficient and more environmentally friendly.

They range from Flex and Makita power tools and Hodge Clemco stone cleaning systems to the ranges of tooling, stone treatments, finishes, adhesives and accessories from companies such as Stone Tools, Technical Diamond Products, Fila, LTP, Dry Treat, Nu-Life Stone Care, Encore Diamond, Chemspec, Mapei, Lantania, Tabularasa, Stone Clear, BASF, Universal Sealants and others. And they are just the companies exhibiting directly. There are even more products to be found on the stands of distributors.

It is difficult enough to keep up with all the advances in stone processing technology, but there is no easier way of doing so than seeing it first hand all under one roof at the Natural Stone Show.

Find what you need at the Natural Stone Show, at ExCeL London, 15-17 March. You can find out more about it and register on-line at www.stoneshow.co.uk to avoid the queues at the entrance.