Yesterday Dave and I had the opportunity to visit another friend's company, New Mexico Travertine. We weren't able to get to the actual quarry, but did have a personal tour of his stone cutting facility. Vince Lardner has retired, but his son's have taken over the business and are continuing in his footsteps providing beautiful stone to commercial and residential builders, architects and artists the world over. Vince and his late wife, Lois, were two of the crew we met in Mexico on our trip to the Copper Canyon. He is one of the pilots that live in Mid Valley Airpark in Los Lunas, N.M.
It is a large operation, quarrying, transporting, cutting and polishing many types of stone from their own quarries and others. Pretty impressive.
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| close section of the huge wall below. It is destined for a building at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. |
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| The squares on this wall section range from 1/2 to l 1/2 inches thick for an interesting affect |
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| This is a close up of a tall slab that will be made into a fountain that has been commssioned by a local artist. Notice the oval hole in the bottom right. |
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| Vince explaining an operation to Dave. Vince grew up in Lockport, N.Y.!!! Small world. |
New Mexico Travertine uses a number of different types of cutting methods. The pictures below show one of their straight blade saws, similar to multiple hack saws, 10 feet long and made of steel tipped with industrial diamonds.
This huge blade is 12 feet in diameter and costs $28,000. It was facinating to watch it slice slowly and methodically through this chunk of marble for another project at UNM.
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| A tiny section of their outdoor inventory. |
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