Each cut displays a completely different picture, and one is never certain what will turn up next , says Ken. The color in the beautiful stone is made from a number of minerals. Iron in the rock makes the dark bands that set apart the other shades. It is believed that a mineral spring once flowed slowly through the quarry area and years of settling created the different bands. The quarry is an hour from Kanab and sits on 20 acres.
Heavy equipment is used to break the stone apart into huge slabs.
A forklift is used to load the boulders onto the trucks that haul the slabs to the shop in Kanab. At the shop the large boulders are brought to the wire saw. The saw cuts the boulders into 15 inch slabs. The saw uses diamond blades which take more than an hour to cut through the large boulders. Most of the equipment used to make the products at Wonderstone was designed and built at the plant.