Recently Stone World had the opportunity to talk to the vice president of ETemplate Systems, Ted Allen, to discuss all things digital templating. The first thing discussed was one of the most commonly asked questions, where do you start as a fabricator? With a CNC? With a templating machine or something else?

“Well, we've seen several fabricators do this, and we've worked with a variety that have done it as well,” said Allen. “Some choose to go with vinyl templates and use a template cutter. That way, they can start using a templating device from us. One of our systems, either our pro or express system. Both of those are systems that they can go out, create their templates, and then print those on 10 mil thick vinyl, and be able to lay those out on the stone, even if they are not cutting with, say, CNC equipment at this time. They can still use a bridge saw they can get wet and it doesn't destroy the template. That process works really well as a transitional product for going to full automation with CNC, your DXF files going straight to the machinery.”