Dimension stone is natural stone or rock that has been selected and fabricated (i.e., trimmed, cut, drilled, ground, or other) to specific sizes or shapes. Color, texture and pattern, and surface finish of the stone are also normal requirements. Another important selection criterion is durability: the time measure of the ability of dimension stone to endure and to maintain its essential and distinctive characteristics of strength, resistance to decay, and appearance.
Quarries that produce dimension stone or crushed stone (used as construction aggregate) are interconvertible. Since most quarries can produce either one, a crushed stone quarry can be converted to dimension stone production. However, first the stone shattered by heavy and indiscriminate blasting must be removed. Dimension stone is separated by more precise and delicate techniques, such as diamond wire saws, diamond belt saws, burners (jet-piercers), or light and selective blasting with Primacord, a weak explosive.
Read more about Dimension Stone: Stone and Rock Types, Major Applications, Production, "Building Green" With Dimension Stone, Sustainability of Dimension Stone, Stone Recycling and Reuse, Stone: Life-cycle Assessment and Best Practices, Stone Selection and Cleaning, Stone Finishes
Famous quotes containing the words dimension and/or stone:
“God cannot be seen: he is too bright for sight; nor grasped: he is too pure for touch; nor measured: for he is beyond all sense, infinite, measureless, his dimension known to himself alone.”
—Marcus Minucius Felix (2nd or 3rd cen. A.D.)
“Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair,
No stone is there to show, no tongue to say,
What was; no dirge, except the hollow sea’s,
Mourns o’er the beauty of the Cyclades.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)