Creating a New Niche from the Past
Again, Kopelov says they’re also lucky in that they have access to the same stone that originally went into the building: Colusa brownstone from a quarry near Maxwell, Calif., that was, for many years, owned by the McGilvrays.
A PASSION
It’s obvious that one of the things that appeals to Labe Kopelov with these projects is the amount of research each job may require. He says he gets information from a number of sources, starting with the Internet.
“A big help I’ve found is a website started by Peggy and George ‘Pat’ Perazzo,” he says. “It’s called quarriesandbeyond.org, and they’ve done incredible research. They’ve been researching quarries all over the country, although I don’t think they’ve gotten to every state. It’s definitely a good starting point.”
Kopelov says a lot of the Perazzos’ information appears to come from old circulars and old tool manuals. He also collects old books on the subject, along with other interesting items related to the trade.
“I don’t know if you’d call this my hobby,” he adds. “I pretty much live and breathe this work. I’m either working or studying about it. It’s a passion.”
The Kopelovs’ shop is a mix of buildings. Much of the shop’s work is done on a Wilson Industrial Electric Inc. bridge saw with a turntable that’s used to cut the stone into rough pieces suitable for the planers.
The company also has a wire saw to cut stone from the block stage, and a large lathe that can turn out pieces up to 20’ long.
The saws are located in a 1,500 ft² heated building, while the planers and lathe are housed nearby in an adjoining 4,000 ft² structure that includes a gantry crane and a storage area.
“We do a lot of our own machining,” says Labe Kopelov. “We make all the carbide planer bits in a little 600 ft² machine shop that we have. We just have a bunch of little buildings where we do certain things. I also have a 1,000 ft² showroom and office, but we’re not a retail shop.”
Not surprisingly, the recession carved into Kopelov’s base of business; and he still hasn’t quite figured out the best way to advertise the company’s restoration services. Instead, it’s still taking on new construction to keep busy.
For instance, the Kopelovs recently did some of the stonework for a new college campus near Albuquerque.
“We met the architect at a trade show, and he immediately focused on our traditional limestone mock-up with a lug sill,” Labe Kopelov explains. “We were also open to doing back-cut corners, rather than miter joints. The project was approximately 2,000 ft³ of Indiana limestone; we like those types of projects, and they’re pretty much what we’re suited for.”
As proud as he is of the work the company turns out, Kopelov is just as proud of his son and their working relationship. Currently, he and Kino are able to handle the work by running extra hours, and to keep additional employees would probably require an expansion of the shop’s repertoire into other kinds of stone fabrication and possibly installation.
“I’ve learned from experience that this compromises the quality of our specialized niche, which is stone replacement for historic structures,” says the father. “Plus, you’d be surprised how much work we can get done. We just know each other so well, I can’t even begin to express how close we are. We just know each other’s moves, so things flow quite smoothly in our shop.”
