52 Frames
Curling
I like YouTube, my wife is Scottish, her parents are fairly accomplished curlers, it was therefore inevitable that YT would one day suggest a video about how curling stones are made. Turns out it's a fairly special process. Olympic stones are made by Kays Curling, Scotland. They have exclusive rights to extract granite from Ailsa Craig, a volcanic plug island off Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland. The granite formed in a very specific way which makes it perfect for curling stones. 2/3 of the worlds curling stones come from Ailsa Craig.
They sail over to the island every now and again to collect common green and blue hone granite. The body of a Kays stone is common green granite and the blue hone granite makes the sliding surface. Naturally (well, for me anyway) I headed to the Kays website and saw that they sell mini stones made from the olympic curling stones that are returned after the olympics. Mrs T got me one of the gift sets for my birthday with a mini stone (made from one of the 128 stones used in the 2026 winter olympics), a couple of coasters and 4 drink stones (not made from olympic stones, but made from Ailsa Craig granite). It takes ages to make the sets, granite is proper hard.
Well, they arrived yesterday. The stone is a wonderful thing, it has pride of place on my cool stuff shelf. The drink stones are in the freezer and the coasters are ready for service.
If you're interested the video is here
