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“It takes 60m years and about six hours to make a curling stone,” shouts Ricky English above the whine of the lathes. The operations manager at Kays Scotland is surrounded by wheels of ancient granite in varying states of refinement.
It is a small business with a big responsibility: the only factory in the world to supply the Winter Olympics with curling stones. Competitors don’t travel with their own stones, which weigh about 18kg each, and with 16 required for a game. Instead, this year, 132 stones were crafted in the East Ayrshire town of Mauchline and shipped to northern Italy.
“It’s not just robots and machines and automated tools doing it,” says English. “It’s handcrafted, it’s traditional, it’s got history. It’s a great wee place.”
The family company, founded in 1851 and employing just 15 staff, began its association with the inaugural Winter Olympics in Chamonix in 1924 and has made every stone since curling was added as a medal sport in 1998, English says. Has he been watching the Winter Olympics himself, where curling has offered some dramatic moments with the GB men and women in action on Friday and over the weekend.
“They do look quite good coming down the ice,” he says, allowing himself a modest grin.
The stones are made from a kind of granite that is only found on Ailsa Craig, a tiny volcanic island in the Firth of Clyde, home to an array of seabirds, and described by John Keats as a “craggy ocean pyramid” in his eponymous sonnet.
The body of the curling stone is made from a single piece of common green granite. “It’s got elasticity and when two stones hit together it acts like a spring,” says English. The running band, the only part of the stone that touches the ice, is an insert made of blue hone granite. “It’s basically a waterproof granite, which makes it perfect for running across ice. And the only place on the planet you can get that is Ailsa Craig.” Both types are extremely hard wearing, he says, and once put together “make the perfect curling stone”.
On the factory floor, each machine takes the initial rough round of granite further along its journey – shaping, integrating the two different granites and then drilling the central hole for the handle. Sparks fly as the stones are polished to a liquid shine using pumice and diamond pads.
The fine craftsmanship is also evident in the miniature curling stones, drinks cubes and coasters being fashioned in one corner. This year, Kays also landed a contract to make official giftware for the Winter Olympics, a huge boost for the business and also a logistical challenge. Gift boxes are piled up in the office ready to ship, with many orders from the US. English wonders whether the American rapper Snoop Dogg’s recent interest in the sport may have boosted the market.
Native to Scotland and one of the world’s oldest team sports, the earliest known curling stone dates back to 1511, with the game originally played on frozen lochs and taken all over the world by Scots immigrants. The Royal Caledonian Curling Club was established in 1838, and the rules were standardised thereafter as milder winter temperatures forced the game to evolve from an outdoor to an indoor sport.
The finished stones – which cost £750 each – are packed on pallets ready to be shipped all over the globe. Canada and China are big buyers, while the furthest afield order last year came from Antarctica.
Kays aims to complete 48 stones a week, and each has a unique number that can be traced back to the original boulder from which it was hewn. The granite is harvested from Ailsa Craig every six or seven years, and with an estimated 680m tonnes of it left there is no issue with supply.
Curling stones are especially long-lasting, and can be returned to the factory for refurbishment. “I think this is the only product in the world where you can come back after 20 years,” says English. “It’s about reliability and performance and they’re used on the biggest stage in the world.”
