A Look Inside a Marble Factory

Cosentino owns a lease to mine this mountain. Here, you can see the various layers of rock in the quarry. Through excavations, they've gradually excised portions until they hit the marble motherlode. The mine has been producing marble blocks for 40 years and has an expected lifespan of 40 more years. The trade name of the stone is "Blanco Macael," referring to the city from which the stone originates. It's one of the many varieties of natural stone the company distributes.

Workers excavate portions of the mountain to determine where the best-quality stone is; they won't go through the entire laborious process in lower-quality sections. Then, they remove blocks measuring three meters by five meters and weighing 22,000 kilos each; that's the same as about ten small cars! Here, a block arrives at the factory for processing. (This is a different type of marble than the nearby Blanco Macael.)

A diamond-toothed saw cuts the block into slabs. Catch a Vine video clip of the process here.

This saw was one of the originals from the factory and dates from the 1950s.

The cut slabs are buffed and polished. See a Vine video clip of the machine in action here.

Then the marble moves to quality control for inspection.

Resin is applied to fill the gaps in pieces with uneven surfaces. Here, workers test various resins on sample tiles.

Since some slabs are more fragile than others, a backing is affixed to prevent cracks and breaking. Here, workers quickly spread the glue.

Then they stick the mat on the back.

Slabs move about the factory on trolleys (somewhat like the cable cars in Dwell's hometown of San Francisco!).

Some slabs are trimmed into tile (these pieces don't have mats on the back).

A computer analyzes each tile, then sorts it by grade.

After sorting, the pieces are boxed and ready to ship to distributers located around the world.