Mother of pearl bathtub
Making a marble bathtub already requires, in itself, no small amount of difficulty. When CusenzaMarmi was asked if it was capable of making a marble bathtub covered with mother-of-pearl, after an initial moment of amazement at the unusual request, it immediately set out to determine how to make it, highlight the critical issues and quantify the costs. The great difficulty was matching a herringbone pattern on curved, concave and convex surfaces.
PAINSTAKING PRECISION
Covering the entire surface of the bathtub with small 2×1 cm mother-of-pearl tiles, intramated in a herringbone pattern, is a job that requires considerable precision and a lot of time. Seams must be studied and the axis of the weave must always be kept in view. The mother-of-pearl tesserae chosen for this work are among the most valuable and expensive, those obtained from sea shells, which are differentiated and recognized from river shells by a greater iridescence of the mother-of-pearl itself.
The end result is an explosion of light and magnificence that transforms a simple marble bathtub into a real jewel!
PROCESSING STEPS
After defining the design and measurements with the client, we proceeded to choose the stone block, intact and without defects, to be excavated and shaped to obtain the desired shape of the bathtub. Once this stage was completed, the curvatures of the tub's surfaces were analyzed and the best approach for gluing the mother-of-pearl tiles was studied. Bonding was done with special epoxy mastics with very high adhesive strength. We then proceeded to finish and polish the mother-of-pearl, obtaining a final result that--WOW!
OVERVIEW
One of the things we enjoy most about our work is always taking on new and exciting challenges; that is why we never back down but analyze and study each job with the experience and background gained from 50 years in the business. Other companies contacted by the client had reported that it was an impossible project to do, especially because of the herringbone weave type and that they would have to settle for a simpler weave: straight weave, one tile after another. We were called "crazy" when the client later showed photos of the bathtub completely covered in mother-of-pearl with herringbone weave!
It is not madness but awareness of one's own means!
