Strong winds and weak pound fail to hit Stone Show

In spite of galeforce winds that caused several high-sided lorries to fall on their sides and led to the closure of the QEII bridge on the M25 resulting in hours of delays, the biggest yet of Londons Natural Stone Shows attracted more visitors than ever this month (March).

Attendance at the Show has yet to be ABC-audited, but raw figures at the entrance indicate attendance was nearly 10% up on the 2006 event at something around 5,500.

Last time, a 7% increase in sold space at ExCeL was squeezed into the same size hall, but the 8% growth this time, taking the number of direct exhibitors to nearly 250, meant an additional aisle had to be added C which, for those who were wondering, explains why there was an AA aisle this time. It pushed the Show up to nearly 10,000m2.

And certainly exhibitors from both the UK and overseas reported to be delighted by the high quality and good mix of trade, specifiers and developers who came to see them C and buy from them.

In spite of a 10% fall in the value of sterling in the past six months translating into higher prices of imported stone and machinery in the UK, exhibitors were reporting plenty of customers for their goods.

With prices rising the low cost Chinese stones might be expected to be a big attraction C and certainly there were plenty of Chinese exhibitors and plenty of people visiting them as the fear of buying from so far away diminishes with familiarity.

However, the Europeans are not defeated. Antonino Dettori and his son Francesco, who own the Italian company Milcomar that has a quarry in Sardinia producing Oroe stone, were exhibiting for the first time following a 72million investment in their business.

Francesco said: Half-an-hour ago a big British importer came on to the stand and said he didnt want to talk to us because we would be too expensive. But he sat down and we made a deal.

Of course, if the price of imported stone is going up, British stone becomes more competitive, both at home and abroad.

There were more British quarries exhibiting this time than ever and they reported a lot of interesting enquiries for some major projects, as well as plenty of smaller ones.

Clinton Haigh from Realstone said: Its been the best Stone Show I have ever been to. I think this time weve had so many good quality people.

Realstone were showing the Generix fixing system with their stone. The system was also shown on specialist contractors Stoneguards stand, with finishes including metal and wood as well as stone. And it was only one of many innovations at the show.

Keith Rackham from Norfolk company H L Perfitt, who are selling a V cut lettering machine shown on the Helios stand, was among those who praised Show Director Richard Bradbury for the organisation of the event. He said: Its a good show, you know. Theres a real buzz.

Richard Bradbury summed up: The best part of the whole two year cycle for me is when people come over to me at the end and tell me how well they have done. Thats what makes it all worthwhile. And its what we will be aiming to achieve again at the next Show. ExCeL is already booked for 16-18 March 2010.

Some of the stands:

Machinery suppliers Accurite had two stands, one just for the new own-brand range of saws they have introduced and one showing their established Denver marque of machinery and the Ghines range of machines, dust extraction units and tools that they have just taken on. Accurite MD Mark Brownley is pictured above (left) with engineer Jimmy Hall in front of one of their new own-brand saws.

The metalwork comes from China to Accurite designs with all the electrics being added in the UK. The saws are fully automatic with a profiling option. The saw above had already been bought by Caithness Stone Industries. Mark said there had been a lot of  interest for the saws at teh show, especially from owner-operators.

Leading CAD/CAM software developers Alphacam launched Alphastone V7.5, the latest release of their advanced machining software for stone-working applications. They also  showed their new Part Modeler design program for the first time in the.

Enhancements to Alphastone V7.5s geometry creation and feature recognition functionality are backed by a series of productivity improvements that includes simple positioning of machine stops, enhanced clamping and additional support for 5-axis machining. The latest release also offers an oscillating toolpath option that ensures consistent wear along the face of the cutting tool. In addition, V7.5 incorporates Autostyles, an extension of Alphacams existing machining styles capabilities, which permits sequences of styles to be grouped together and assigned to specific layers of the model.

Alphacams new Part Modeler provides a low cost, protected upgrade route for companies looking to migrate from 2D to 3D solid modelling C by delivering around 80% of the functionality of premium design software packages at less than 20% of their cost.

B-Stone, the British arm of a Belgium stone group, were at the Natural Stone Show for the second time but with a new manager in Roger Lill, pictured here (centre) with sales team Simon Notman and Veronique Rousseau. B-Stone are just completing a £1.5million move into new, 2,800m2 premises, giving them 50% more space than they had at their previous site. Roger said: The shows excellent. They had met many new potential customers and had the opportunity to put faces to people he had only previously spoken to on the telephone. There seems to be a lot of contract work C 50-100 apartment projects, he said.

Combined Masonry Supplies had a complete  production line from Kolb, the German machinery manufacturers they represent in the UK, on their stand. The line was on its way to Montpellier in Cheltenham. The £160,000 line is 7m wide and 26m long, although it does not have to be in a straight line. In a continuous operation involving just three people, the stone slab is first cut to width, then goes to a cross-cut saw to be cut to length. It is drilled on its way to a Kolb Genius. The Genius is a manually operated workcentre, although Kolb say an automatic version will be out before the end of the year.  Martin Kolb is pictured here (on the left) with Richard  Neal of Combined Masonry Supplies.

Colin Harper, Director of Al-Vac, was at the Strone Show for the first time showing the Batlift vacuum lifting device that can be attached to a forklift or crane to take stone from an A-frame and turn it to lay iflat on a worktable.

There were several innovations in using stone as a facing on other materials at the Stone Show, including one from Stephen Camburn being shown on the Albion Stone stand. It is a tile for fixing to floors or walls that has a 5mm veneer of natural Portland limestone on an 8mm porcelain backing. The stone is being sent to China for the tiles to be manufactured. The advantage is not only that the tile is thinner C in solid stone it would normally be at least 20mm thick C and lighter, making it easier to transport and fix, but it is also less expensive at around £70/m2 in 60 x 60cm tiles. It will open up the residential market, Stephen Camburn said. And while the first tiles have been manufactured with a Portland stone facing, the intention is to produce a range of tiles with several other British stone finishes. Stephen said a number of major tile distributors had already shown an interest (including London stone wholesalers MgLW).

The UK's biggest stone and machinery wholesalers, Pisani, had their stands facing the main entrance of the exhibition made a stylish introduction to the show highlighting the wholesalers latest stone collections. The stand was designed by Wheat Designs & Displays, who have also designed the showrooms at Pisanis new £10million, 2.4-acre state-of-the-art stone centre just five minutes from the London end of the M3 and 2 1/2 miles  from Heathrow. There will be an official opening later in the year attended by plenty of people who were at the Stone Show in March. Director Nick Telfer said the stand reflected the direction Pisani are going, being inspirational and creative. Part of that creativity is in their own management, the main board having established an operational board consisting of David Graterex, Steve Corbett, Patrick Land, Paul Gidley and Keith Parkin, the group accountant.

Pisani showed machinery from some of their main suppliers at the exhibition. Paul Gidley said orders for two GMM Egil saws had been placed during the Show as well as orders for a GMM Brio, a Marmomeccanica edge polisher and an Intermac  Master 30 workcentre. And, he added, there have been a lot of solid enquiries.

Star of the Harbro stand was the HTM robot that Harbro have introduced to the UK. Geoff Bowles, Managing Director of Harbro, says that since masonry company J Rotherham bought the first robot last year two more have been sold and further enquiries were taken at the exhibition at ExCeL in London that he confidently expects to lead to at least two more sales.

Harbro continue to innovate for the stone industry in the UK and another new launch  on their stand was the SAD Motogen, a saw designed by the Italian makers in conjunction with Harbro specifically for UK stone cmpanies working in the kitchen market. The saw can accept slabs 3m x 1.8m and is 500kg heavier than some of its competitors, increasing stability.

Harbros offering continues to be underpinned by the extensive Weha range of tools, machinery and materials handling equipment that Geoff says remains as popular as ever.

New on the chemicals side was the Lantania range of stone treatments, exclusive to Harbro.

Geoff Bowles said that during the three days of the Stone Show he spoke to a lot of people who were interested in buying new machinery to up-grade and improve efficiency in a market of tightening margins.

Many visitors were attracted to the stylish Levantina stand where the UKs Shaun Hopkinson was joined by the Spanish companys European business Director Guillermo Perez, who said: The UK is a priority market for us right now. We have big hopes for it. The Show had helped those aspirations, said Shaun. Its been good for us.

Consultants STATS offered help help and advice on the selection and in-service performance characteristics of stone and slate. Visitors to their stand were invited to take part in STATS 2007/08 survey on the stone industry in return for a free copy of their new Reference Guide (normally £24.99), which is designed to help anyone involved in designing, specifying, buying, selling or working with stone or slate. Various test and examination methods were on display and visitors were invited to bring along any manageable samples of their own to seek any initial comment and advice.

Edward Hathaway from Johan Eggers was offering crystals set in resin for interiors. He said there had been a lot of interest for the German product from the UK construction sector, especially for wellness clinics, which wanted the beneficial vibrations of the crystals. It was in response to that level of interest that he had decided to exhibit at the Stone Show. And his verdict? Its been good. I cant complain.

Peter Waldron, who supplies the market leading stone treatments of Lithofin in the UK and Ireland, said that while the product range has been well established for the past five to eight years, the formulations of the products are developing constantly to reflect changes in the market, although customers are not usually aware of the changes being made. Stain Stop, he says as an example, has been adapted for travertine as thats so popular.

He said of the Stone Show: I have been to all the Shows and this one has been very good. We have taken on a lot of new accounts a lot of new accounts.

There was no shortage of stands to visit on the interiors and tile side of the industry. The displays of Turkish stone on the stand of Bayyurt and a new stone from China called New St Laurant on the stand of InStone Europe, based in London, were just two of the new offerings to be seen.

Keith Rackham of H L Perfitt in Norfolk was on the Italian machinery manufacturers Helios stand with Antonio Fontana, representing Helios. Keith has collaborated with Helios to bring the Helios V cut lettering machine to the UK for £26,000, including training and installation. It certainly attracted the attention of a lot of visitors to the show, including Christie Burns from Slago in Ireland who had flown into London for the day to visit the exhibition. Keith Rackham said he had bought one of these machines for his own masonry business and had subsequently won the Ministry of Defence contract to produce armed forces memorials for those who die on active service. We found it a fantastic machine, he said, although he had to develop some fonts for the Britiush market. That done, he is now selling the machine to the UK and Ireland.

Jonathan Grayburn, the Managing Director of APS Masonry in Osney Mead, Oxfordshire, was on the Johnston Quarry Group stand with MD Nicholas Johnston with an urn of Creeton Silverbed limestone, one of the stones produced by the Johnston Group and sold as block to masonry companies such as APS. Johnston have also recently taken over the original Guiting Quarry in Gloucestershire and, in a strengthening of their position, have formed a relationship with Yorkshire-based Marshalls, who already own the quarrying and masonry company Stancliffe in Derbyshire. Marshalls have bought 25% of Johnston's Creeton and Guiting quarries.

The National Association of Memorial Masons have always backed the Natural Stone Show in London and were back once again this year with a display of lettering by Nick Hindle from H L Perfitt in Diss, Norfolk, whose work once won him six awards in the NAMM Craftex competition. Some of the latest Craftex winners were on the stand, where National Executive Officer Ian Gostling says they saw a lot of members and also signed up some new ones.

Richard Lord and Mark Sandford on the Knauf stand were delighted with the response to their Aquapanel tile backer board. Weve had about 100 enquiries already and seen some big potential contracts, said Mark half way through the Show. He said they had cherrry picked three exhibitions to attend this year. Ive got to say, Im impressed with this one, he said. They had decided to exhibit as the result of seeing the interest from stone companies when they exhibited at a tile show in London last year. What stone companies particularly like about Aquapanel is that it can support up to 50kg per square meter, allowing large sizes of stone to be used. They used the show for a bit of test marketing of a new flooring system to be introduced later in the year, but Richard said: We cant talk about that.

On one of three stands occupied by tool machinery and consumables company the Waters Group was a good selection of their products with one stand devoted to the Thibaut saws and workcentres that Waters sell.

Nichola Waters, MD of the group, said visitors had been particularly impressed by the new Thibaut T812 CNC machine with the new, simpler software introduced throughout the Thibaut range. They were impressed to see it working. They can see for themselves the quality of the machine. Im looking forward to a year of exceptional CNC sales, based on the number of leads weve had.

There was a stunning display of some of the more exotic of the 1,000 stones supplied by Italians Antolini Luigi.

Caithness Stone Industries from Scotland were back at the show for the first time in 10 years and were buying as well as exhibiting. They have just built two new sheds in their quarry to house new CNC machinery, including a waterjet cutter, that they intend to use to take them into the worktops and memorial markets as an expansion of their business that has traditionally been predominantly in paving.

Simon Hart and Nick Horton, now partners following Forest Pennants purchase of a third of the Forest of Dean Stone Firms business run by Nick Horton that has enabled planned investment to be brought forward to meet a growing demand for the stone from the Forest of Dean. I think words getting round the industry, says Simon. Business is getting better and better.

The Stone Federation Great Britain stand was at the centre of the Stone Village of specially designed stands on which 14 of the Federations members exhibited their goods and services. The Federation presented a session of the Natural Stone & Building Conservation Conference run in conjunction with the Show and had experts on hand to answer questions from visitors to the show about the use of stone.

Phil Haith and Carl Sharkey were on their Stone Industries Supplies stand where the offering included Prussiani CNC workcentres and Sasso edge polishers. They had also had a tremendous response to their digital templating system. And a photographic scanner, the Allen Datagraph, for digitising real world templates (in MDF for example) for CNC production of the worktop was also attracting plenty of interest.

Doyen of the stone industry Cesare Lopez, selling Terzago saws, Fantini mining and quarrying equipment, Achilli workcentres and many other marques, said it was easier to sell larger machines these days than the smaller pieces because of a growing gap between large companies and smaller companies and all customers seeking to get more work out of their investments all the time. Its like the small shop keeper and the supermarket, he says. Once there was the skill of the man that could compensate, but now machines do all the work. After a moments reflection he adds: But the Show has been good for sales of the small machines as well as the larger pieces.

ScandInvents machinery has been designed and developed by Swedes who used to have their own stone company and believe they know what the industry wants. What they have produced is low-price, easy-to-operate but sturdy machinery that is proving popular in the UK market. So popular that a general manager has now been appointed in the UK. He is Glenn Groom. ScandInvent plan to develop their range of products continually. The latest addition is the SX5 bridge saw, a prototype of which was seen at Verona last year. It is now about to go into production.

Italian stone producers and importers Milcomar have just spent Euro2million on new machinery at their Oroe quarry in Sardiania and factory in Verona from which they produce 150,000m2 of Oroe stone a year as well as processing 300,000m2 of imported material. The company owner, Antonino Dettori and his son Francesco were exhibiting their stone in the UK for the first time and were delighted with the outcome.

Stoneguard introduced the Stone Consortium, of which they are part, that offers a complete lightweight frame and panel cladding solution for fast-track development using stone on a lightweight aluminium honeycombe backing in conjunction with a lightweight frame, all fixed by Stoneguard. Also on their stand they showed the new Generex Facade Systems rainscreen, introduced by John Nolan.

Star of machinery, tool and consumables company National Masonrys stand  was the companys range of Sink Hole Savers that clamp on to a worktop to protect it while it is being delivered and installed. Managing Director Andy Bell says they sold 50 sets at the Stone Show (at between £500 and £900 a set) and are still following up enquiries. They also sold a Mondial bridge saw and a lot of smaller macchines.

The exhibition also saw National Masonry launch an innovative new way of buying and up-grading machinery. It is called renew in two. It offers customers a chance to buy a machine now secure in the knowledge that they can replace it at the same price with a new machine in two years time as long as they trade in the machine they are buying now at a guaranteed part exchange price of 55% of the purchase price. In other words, if you buy a £20,000 saw now, you can replace it in two years with the latest updates for £9,000. In the meantime, you will also be covered, parts and labour, if anything goes wrong with it to get it back up and riunning again. Its about pushing the boundaries of custopmer care, says Andy. We wont sell you a machine and walk away. I got the idea from the USA. Nobody else in the stone industry is coming anywhere near an offer like this.

Ian Butterworth, the Managing Director of Wessex Dimensional Stone, was spreading the message that he has just secured planning permission that gives him another 25 years of reserves in his Bath stone mine and that he has just put another saw into the mine to improve production. Wessex now employ 20 people at their two mines and quarry and Ian said that although there was a lot of Chinese and Indian stone to be seen at the Natural Stone Show people are still coming to see me because they want to use British stone.

Stella Zambelis of the company D Zambelis introduced a new range of Spanish Gisbert machinery that Zambelis to the UK market. Until now, Zambelis have sold only tools and consumables to the stonemasonry market in the UK, but Stella says they are now ready to take the next step into machinery and what better place to do it than at the Natural Stone Show in London.

Vetter, the German stone company owned by Laing ORourke, were showing a fixing system they use in Germany to overcome the problem of thermal bridging when using stainless steel fixings. Here, the insulation behind a rainscreen has been cut out and replaced with Foamglass, a material sold all over the world, that the fixing is attached to. Showing how the system works on the Vetter stand was Harold Wolff, head of design at the company.

Boldy going the quartz composite route is Rubee Alhafidh, selling from his warehouse in Warwick Star-Tek quartz tiles and slabs produced in the Gulf. He keeps eight of the most popular colours in stock available for 48-hour delivery with other colours available for ordering.