Robot has the cutting edge

Now Rob Parker, 48, owner and managing director of Stoneworld at Great Milton, is taking a step forward which, some say, will bring the electronic revolution to the stone carving business — and change it forever, much as steam trains in the industrial revolution changed the transport business.

He is about to take delivery of the nation's first six-axis robotic mason, with a rotating table and capable of cutting in six directions.

The £300,000 robot, called Robostone, scheduled to arrive from Italy next month, can carve even the most intricate gargoyles — or full-sized statues come to that — using any kind of stone: from soft limestone such as that found in the Cotswolds, to hard marble such as the Carrara that Michaelangelo used for his David, or his Prisoners.

The software of the technology enables images to be scanned into a computer, and then reproduced exactly like the original.

News of Robostone's arrival in Oxfordshire has already spread far and wide. Its first job when installed will be to carve busts of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire which, when completed, will stand alongside those of the Duke's ancestors at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.

Mr Parker said: "Of course Robostone cannot produce original work, but it can reproduce what already exists."

It can also store on archive carvings from any time in the past for reproduction in the future when they might have become worn out.

Indeed soon, for an extra £10,000 investment, Mr Parker's machine will even be able to enhance a worn out image on screen to bring it back to its original form — say replace a missing nose, or perhaps even the missing arm of the Venus de Milo — and then reproduce the whole thing in three dimensional form.

Mr Parker, who has already had enquiries from Oxford University and the Church of England about restoration work projects, said: "Stonemasons in Britain have been using robots for some years already, but this is the first six-axis machine, capable of doing complete 3D work. The most advanced in the UK at the moment is five axis."

He added: "It's a big investment, but we are always ready to try something new if the quality is right. This business is built on top quality."

A comparative new boy to the world of stone, he set up in business at Views Farm in August 2001 — and the company "really started motoring", (his words) in February the following year.

Now he has a £2.5m annual turnover and has opened additional yards at Bracknell and Towcester. Altogether he employs nine people full time, two part time, plus two freelance consultants, for publicity and finance .

The new service from Stoneworld will be marketed under the name StonGenie.

The publicity material says: "The main applications for StoneGenie range from reproduction and repair projects for heritage organisations, to high quality kitchen and bathroom sinks and worktops.

"StoneGenie can replace worn gargoyles, ornate gateposts, garden figures — in fact any masonry item."

Mr Parker added: "I used to be an agricultural rep and visited the owner of this farm, Charles Peers. I thought that setting up a stone yard couldn't be rocket science. Now I have become incredibly interested in stone."

He added: "I think the reason we have not been affected by the down turn in the building trade is that we are not supplying builders of housing estates, many of whom use cheaper materials.

"Instead, from the first day we aimed at quality and wouldn't sell cheaply. Now we have the Bicester Village contract and will supply that with up to 8,000 square metres of paving."

It seems that, since the exhaustian of the famous local quarries, like those that supplied stone in the 17th Century for the building of much of Oxford (Headington and Taynton for instance), modern stone dealers tour the world to find areas of its surface which can be dug up to supply their needs. The paving for Bicester VBillage, for example, will come from India.

Mr Parker said: "We now have close ties to Rajastan. Last year I went to Agra and then on down to Gwalia where the renowned Fossil Mint sandstone comes from. It's only by knowing that you can find the best quality stone."

The business began by supplying gravels, then moved on to paving, walling, and finally work tops for kitchens.

He said: "We went into worktops two years ago with a computerised machine that could carve out sinks and drainage flutes. It solved the problem of our original business being very seasonal, since much kitchen work is done in the winter."

That step involved understanding computer software. Luckily Mr Parker already had someone on his staff, Steven Newbury, 28, who showed a flare for this kind of work and now seems undaunted by the prospect of tackling the Robostone software.

Chatting about stone in general we naturally touched on the subject of the disastrous granite that Oxford City Council imported from China two years ago in order to pave Cornmarket. It lasted a matter of months before cracking up.

Mr Parker said: "There are some silver-grey granites from China that are strong and some which are not."

We wish him luck with his new robot. Already local sculptors have approached him, excited at the prospect of reproducing their work in different scales for sales in the future.

And have there been any funny requests? "Well one gentleman wants us to produce a statue of his wife — with nothing on."