They Quoted to Blast. They Cut Instead.
They Saved $365K.
T&C Contracting excavated over 50,000 cubic yards of solid rock on a Kentucky bourbon distillery project without a single blast. They kept the work in-house, reused 100% of the cutting spoils, and walked away with more than a third of a million dollars in savings.
Blasting Looks Cheap on Paper.
The Real Bill Comes Later.
When the T&C Contracting team first bid this bourbon distillery project in Shelbyville, Kentucky, the plan was to drill and shoot. The rock was solid limestone, up to 20 feet deep in places, and blasting was the assumed path forward.
But the distillery owner had serious concerns. This was a Napa Valley-style bourbon tourism destination being built into a hillside. Overshoot from blasting could have damaged the precision wall lines, scattered fragmented rock across the site, and created a backfill nightmare that would have cost the client far more than the excavation itself.
That is the hidden cost of blasting that never shows up in the subcontractor quote: the shot rock you still have to deal with after the dust settles.
Blasting in tight or sensitive areas risks damaging adjacent structures, utilities, and property lines. The liability exposure alone can dwarf the cost of the work.
Blasted rock comes out in large, irregular boulders. You pay to crush it, screen it, or haul it off. None of that material goes back into your project as usable fill.
When you can't reuse your excavation spoils, you import fill material. On a project this size, that imported material cost alone ran into the hundreds of thousands.
Writing a check to a blast sub means your margin walks out the door. You lose control of schedule, quality, and profit on your own job.
Watch the KEMROC EKT 220
Cut Through Solid Rock
These are real clips from the Shelbyville distillery project. No stock footage. No demos. This is what the KEMROC EKT 220 looks like on a live job site cutting solid Kentucky limestone.
Bourbon Distillery Site Prep
Shelbyville, Kentucky
A new bourbon distillery designed as a Napa Valley-style tourist destination along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. The building was designed to be constructed into a hillside, with the roof serving as a public lawn. The entire hillside was solid rock.
Cut It Clean.
Keep It In-House.
Reuse Everything.
Instead of drilling and blasting, T&C deployed a fleet of KEMROC drum cutters and chain cutters. The chain cutters scored the exact outline of the excavation to the precise dimensions the distillery required. Then the drum cutters removed all the material from the middle.
The result was a clean, rectangular excavation cut into the hillside with walls that matched the architect's drawings. No overshoot. No fragmented boulders to deal with. No subcontractor to manage.
And every cubic yard of rock that came out of that hillside went right back into the project as usable material.
In-House Labor and Equipment
T&C used their own crews and their own machines. The budget was originally built around a blasting subcontractor quote. By doing the work themselves with KEMROC cutters, they hit that same budget number while keeping all the margin.
100% Material Reuse
KEMROC cutters produce a granular, well-graded spoil that compacts like engineered fill. Every cubic yard of rock cut from that hillside was reused on-site, either as roadway stone base or as storm trench backfill.
This Is Your Answer
to Sticker Shock.
The budgets for mass rock and storm trench rock were built on a blasting subcontractor quote. What the numbers show is that T&C cut the rock for essentially the same price they had budgeted — but they used their own labor and equipment instead of writing a check to a sub. Then the material reuse savings came on top of that.
| Cost Factor | Drilling & Blasting | KEMROC Cutters |
|---|---|---|
| Excavation Cost | Subcontractor quote (margin out the door) | In-house with own labor and equipment |
| Rock Material Output | Large boulders requiring crushing or disposal | Granular, well-graded — ready to compact |
| Roadway Stone Base | Import required — estimated $300,000+ | $0 — 100% from cutting spoils |
| Storm Trench Backfill | Import required — estimated $65,000 | $0 — cutting spoils used directly |
| Precision of Cut | Approximate — overshoot risk | Exact dimensions to architect's spec |
| Blasting Liability | Full exposure — permits, insurance, neighbors | Zero — no explosives on site |
| Client Confidence | Concerns about overshoot and fragmentation | Clean walls, no damage, full approval |
This Technology Has Been
Proven for 40 Years.
In Europe.
KEMROC has been manufacturing precision rock cutting attachments in Germany since 2000. Their technology has been used on major infrastructure projects across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and South America for decades.
Scott Thornberry did not become a dealer because someone sold him on it. He became a dealer because he bought one cutter for T&C Contracting, saw it work exactly as advertised, and immediately bought five more. Then he decided the rest of the contracting world deserved to know about it.
Rock Hard Solutions is one of the exclusive U.S. dealers of KEMROC technology. When you call Scott, you are talking to a contractor who has run this equipment on real jobs and knows exactly what it will do for yours.
- 3 to 5x more productive per hour
- Granular reusable spoil vs. large broken chunks
- Exponentially lower operating cost
- Consumable picks absorb wear — not your excavator
- Zero liability exposure — no explosives
- Precision cuts to exact dimensions
- 100% reusable material output
- No subcontractor — keep the margin in-house
Your Next Project
Could Look Like This.
Let's Find Out.
If you have a project coming up that involves rock excavation, Scott wants to talk to you. Not a sales pitch — a real conversation about your job, your equipment, and whether KEMROC cutters are the right fit. If they are not the right fit, he will tell you that too.