Engineering, Building Portable Machines for the Stone Industry

     Edgemate Stone Tools began in the basement of Bob’s home more than 19 years ago. Introduced to the stone industry when he did is first stone tops for some furniture, he thought he would fabricate the granite for his own kitchen.  Annoyed by the ripples in the flat polished edge he thought there should be a jig to hold the polisher with more accuracy.
     He designed a jig which became a working prototype. This prototype had a few issues. The roller blade wheels and the slides within the machine were hanging up due to the stone slurry. Even with these issues, the prototype worked surprisingly well. 
      The next generation, the spindle moved a full 180 degrees traveling on two c-arms and the machine rolled on a track to protect the stone. When this version survived a few kitchens, he filed for a patent. Four generations later, the c-arm polisher became Edgemate Stone Tool's first tool called the Edgemate 100.  
      Edgemate Stone Tools has now designed and built several other machines for the fabrication of stone countertops. These machines are part of a system to cut sink holes using a saw blade guided by a template. We are still utilizing the same design of a very heavy walled plastic that has been proven by the Edgemate 100s to be extremely durable and long wearing with machines going well beyond 14 years with no plastic part failures. 
     The stone industries' greatest challenged for the last few years has been how to find skilled labor. So in 2015, he took apart his 2004 CNC router that he bought as a kit, and used the electronics for his first build out of a CNC to cut sink holes. Once again, he learned that stone slurry and sliding parts do not work together. He also found out that the drives and motors were only strong enough if the feedrate was slowed down to a crawl and the depth of cut was so shallow that it took forever.
     After working to resolve these problems, three generations later, he introduced the SinkBot Pro CNC in 2019, followed in 2022 by the little brother the SinkBot Rebel. The SinkBot CNCs have proven to be long lasting, well designed machines for the stone industry. We are looking forward to what comes next.