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Mauchline Curling Stone Works
Manufacturers of the Olympic 2002 Stones

                                          Photo Anon
Left: An advert from a booklet from around 1906.The curling stones are made from rock quarried on Ailsa Craig. 
Photos Terry Harrison
A couple of views of Ailsa Craig, just off the coast of South Ayrshire.
Some modern day photos taken in the summer of 2009 are now available on ayrshirehistory.com. Click here to view
Photos Terry Harrison
On Ailsa Craig.
 Photo Anon
Work begins at the Mauchline factory
Photos Anon
Left: First stage of fashioning a curling stone is "roughing out" with a hammer and chisel, a skilled job in which uncertain chipping "can cost a pound a hit", as the men say. The diameter is checked with callipers after every few strokes.
Right: Making curling stones is a precision job. The granite like Ailsite must be ground down eventually to 39 - 40 lbs.(pounds), the standard weight of a finished stone. Here Davy Brown, still at work in his 70s, checks the weight of a stone, after smoothing it on his turning machine. Finished diameter is 11 inches, with a depth of 5 7/8 inches (5.875 inches)
(This was the text on the back of these images, dating perhaps from the 60s)

Photo Anon
The next stage in roughing out, is to make the upper and lower surfaces of the stone parallel. On this machine the stone is secured on a large spinning wheel, and the surfaces trimmed flat by a revolving tool. Operating the machine is Tom Wyllie, one of the three brothers who run this 90 year old family business in Rabbie Burns country.
(This was the text on the back of these images, dating perhaps from the 60s)

Photos Anon
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