Pennsylvania Shop Tops the “Crews that ROCK”

Custom Marble & Granite in Butler, Pa., is the winner of the 2012 Crews that ROCK competition for StonExpo/Marmomacc Americas.

The family owned hand-fabrication shop won airline credit and rooms in Las Vegas for up to eight employees to attend this year’s event on Jan. 23-27 – although the job that won included a crew of only three.

Lester Swick, Chris Purdy and Ronald Twentier created a display last year for a home show with Black Galaxy 3cm perimeter back counters and African Tobacco 2cm granite stacked in an ogee-over-ogee (4cm) profile tracing carved post bumpouts. The stacked granite returned into an integrated granite apron front sink with mitered walls and apron.

The seamless look for the apron front was created with three miters for a substantial 1.5”-wide apron. look.  The left, rear and right walls are mitered from the countertop to the sink bottom.

Swick owns Custom Marble & Granite, which opened four years ago, with spouse Jean Marie Schneider.

Second place went to Britishstone of Lakewood, Ohio, for the hand-carved replacement of the Spirit of the Ocean Fountain at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Britishstone’s proprietor Nick Blantern teamed up with fellow Englishman Nathan Hunt, Andrian Melka and Jack Carter of Hunt Studios, along with Blake Rankin of Santa Barbara and Steven Bouska, a stone mason now working in Australia.  

The project started by taking a 3-D scan of the original fountain. and a CNC machine created a foam model. The artists molded clay and plaster to the foam sculpture, using early photos of the original fountain as a model to correct the decayed parts of the original 1927 fountain.

Using chisels with tips custom shaped to match the original chisels used, the goal was to get as close to the original fountain as possible, without losing a single detail.

The stone was craned onto the lawn of the courthouse, and a 40’ X 40’ carving studio was set up, opening the project for public viewing during the seven-month project.

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