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Production sequence Germany

From the depths of the earth to the roofs of the world...

It is a long way until the slate extracted in underground mining is turned into the precious cap stones. Cap stones giving every roof and every façade the touch of something very special. Naturally our entire production is also ISO certified.

Click in the presentation on the relevant production step you are interested in to obtain additional information.

Good luck for the journey into the inside of the earth

With the hoisting cage in the mine Katzenberg one goes down to a depth of 300 metres to the workplaces of qualified experts. Underground galleries and tunnels more than 30 kilometres long connect on nine level horizons three mighty slate layers.

The most modern equipment allows the safe and cost-effective mining.

Whilst in the old days a lot of expenditure was caused and a lot of time used, today a more cost-effective mining can be achieved with specifically developed machines.

Slate can be mined more efficiently by the modern technique. This saves costs and has contributed to the fact that today slate is offered at clearly more reasonable prices than a few years ago.

Slate blocks are mined from the mountain.

The slate prepared with a saw to block sizes of one tonne each is separated from the mountain by means of large joint-controlled chisels.

Sawing

		The first step of the over ground production starts with cutting the slate blocks into the form required for further processing.

Today modern technique over ground also provides an important contribution for the success of the entire production process.	Diamond saws with laser technique Supported by the laser technique specific diamond saws give the blocks that are kept at the mountain humidity a first shape.

Splitting

With all the mechanisation available the shaping procedures, such as splitting, are still carried out by qualified manual work.



The splitter purposefully applies the tool and splits the slate into plates approximately 5 mm thick. Piece by piece the blocks are divided into plates.	The splitter needs a calm hand and a lot of feeling in order to separate the individual plates from each other by means of a pneumatic power chisel.	Measuring and checking Immediately after splitting the slate, quality control is started and it checks the splitting thickness of the slate plates. Only the optimal splitting thicknesses reach the next working process, the finishing.



After mining the slate blocks from the mountain they are transported by wheel loaders to the lorries.	After the transfer onto the lorry a locomotive operated by high-performance accumulators takes over the further transport of the slate to the hoisting shaft.	"Twice beats" is the signal in order to send the skip car up to the light. After millions of years of "maturing" the slate then for the first time sees daylight.



A task demanding great skill, a good eye and experience over many years.	old German style covering requires a special building material. For this purpose the Moselschiefer is today still manually shaped.	Sorting - a first-class service for the roofer Whilst in the old days the slate still had to be manually sorted at the building site, today it is already delivered to the building site in sorted form. This reduces the costs and accelerates the working speed.