This Funeral Home wanted “Black Natural Stone” to clad their new building. When samples were brought, at first glance one of the owners decided immediately that the stone he uses would be our “Midnight Black”. Once they saw it… nothing else was considered. They fell in love with its beauty, darkness, and amazing sparkle. They chose a blend of 1 to 3″ and 3 to 7″ heights.
Midnight Black is amazing in sunlight or in shadows. Dark Black has become extremely sought after, which prompted us to have this new “Midnight Black” quarry opened… which has made many customers happy.
With so many equivalent quarries being depleted and no quarry extensions available, there has been increased demand for our Midnight Black. We are thankful that we are on 500+ years of reserves, even if we increase production greatly. It makes us feel good that we are able to fill a need for those needing “Black Stone”, and have struggled to find it.
With “dark black” being such an “in color”… opening this quarry happened just in time to supply that need.
The mock-ups (close up) shows that laying a black stone with a light mortar joint looks so different than the section laid with drystack joints.
The Funeral Home Owners chose to go with the drystack joints. We recommend that the backer mortar and adhering mortar should be dark black because where you see into even a fine crack between pieces of stone… you want to see the illusion of a shadow, rather than a bright colored mortar.
It was nice to get a sizeable project like this as one of our earlier projects to showcase our Midnight Black. This stone is “dark black” and full of sparkle. A percentage of Midnight Black is often used to darken other blends. We increase the percentage of “Midnight Black” until it darkens the wall the amount our customers desire.
For many years the darkest stone we had was dark enough. Then we started noticing customers asking if we have anything darker. Our Midnight Black was the darkness they wanted. As you can see… it is very dark black. Opening this quarry started with the request for darker stone, then finding the prospect. Followed by a four wheeler ride up the mountain to view and bring samples down. Then the testing and sending samples. After seeing very positive response, the road was built and the quarry opened. Now there is an abundance of dark black, sparkly stone available.