Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Cultured Marble & Granite Table Tops


The New York City health department has identified 1700 coffee shops in the 5 Boroughs. I wonder how many of them have tables that need a face lift?  If each of these coffee shops averaged 10 tables, that’s 17,000 table tops.  And there are a lot more hotdog stands, hamburger joints, casa de burrito taquerias, fast food establishments and restaurants than there are coffee shops.  I could see a factory having more work than they could handle just making table tops.





Here is a photo of a couple of 30" X ½" thick (76cm X 1.27 cm) round table tops at DFW Airport.

 Making cultured marble, granite or onyx table tops is about as easy as it gets and can generate some fast cash flow.  There is little set-up/labor cost involved and you can easily calculate exactly what your material cost will be after first determining the area (sq ft or m2), then using our ‘Material Cost Calculator’ spreadsheet you saw in our last post, to determine your total matrix cost.


To determine the area (square feet, square inches or m2) of a circle, take π (Pi) times the Radius squared. (A = π x r²)






If I want to find the area of a 30” diameter table top mold, it will look like this:
(The Radius is half the Diameter)

3.14 X 15 X 15 = 706 square inches.
706 square inches ÷ 144 = 4.9 square feet.
4.9 square feet X 5.3 pounds per square feet = 25.9 (26) Pounds Total Matrix Mix.

Matrix material cost varies depending mostly on the cost of resin.  Here in the USA, resin prices vary between $1.50 to $1.75 per pound, giving us a total matrix cost between .59¢ to .66¢ per pound.  Using an even .60¢ per pound matrix cost X 26 pounds tells us our raw materials cost $15.60.

View my previous post Determining Your Material Cost to learn more about how to calculate your total matrix mix cost.
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