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Whether you’re new to stone fabrication or a part of the countertop industry, it’s important to understand the properties of the materials you’re working with. This guide covers the most popular materials used in countertop fabrication. We’ll explore their key attributes, the challenges they bring, and the best ways to use them.
Quick Reference Guide
Quartz
What It Is:
Quartz an engineered material made from natural quartz and resin, known for its durability and ease of fabrication. It’s non-porous, resistant to stains and scratches, and comes in a wide range of colors and patterns. Its consistent quality and low maintenance make it in high demand & popular with many clients.
Where It Works:
Quartz is perfect for busy kitchens and bathrooms where resilience is essential. Its high durability and functionality make it ideal for areas that see a lot of activity.
What It’s Like to Work With:
Quartz is easy to handle due to its uniformity and hardness, which allows for smooth cutting, shaping, and mitering. The material’s consistency ensures a reliable outcome that aligns with design expectations. It is also repairable and doesn’t require any sealing, making it a practical choice for many applications.
Granite
What It Is:
Granite has long been a staple in stone fabrication and remains a popular material choice for countertops. Known for its natural beauty and versatility, granite can accommodate a variety of edge profiles.
Where It Works:
Granite is an excellent choice for a wide range of settings, including kitchens, bathrooms, and outdoor kitchens. When properly sealed, granite is resistant to stains, scratches, and heat, offering long-lasting performance.
What It’s Like to Work With:
Granite’s high hardness requires specialized equipment for cutting and shaping, but its this material is easy to cut and provides clean mitered cuts. Once fabricated, it provides a durable and resilient surface that’s resistant to heat and UV exposure.
Marble
What It Is:
Marble is synonymous with luxury and elegance. As a natural stone, it’s softer than other materials, allowing for intricate edge profiles. However, this softness also makes marble more susceptible to scratches and etching, especially from acidic substances. Marble’s natural veining and unique patterns make it a popular choice for adding a touch of luxury to any space.
Where It Works:
Marble is perfect for low-traffic areas where aesthetics are key, like master bathrooms, feature walls, and decorative countertops. Due to its sensitivity to weathering and lack of UV resistance, it’s best avoided in outdoor applications.
What It’s Like to Work With:
Marble is a manageable material for fabricators, but its softer nature compared to granite means it’s more prone to scratching and chipping during cutting. Its natural veining and unique patterns require precision machinery to ensure the best aesthetic outcome in the final installation.
Soapstone
What It Is:
Soapstone is a natural stone known for its smooth, matte finish and rich, deep colors. Soapstone is naturally a low-porosity material but requires periodic oil applications for aesthetics. Its heat resistance makes it a choice for areas exposed to high temperatures. Educating customers about the unique characteristics and maintenance of soapstone is essential for ensuring long-term satisfaction.
Where It Works:
Soapstone is used in kitchens, fireplaces, and outdoor spaces, where its heat resistance and UV resistance provide significant advantages. That said, customers should know that soapstone scratches easily. Its distinctive appearance and texture make it a popular choice for those seeking a rustic or antique aesthetic.
What It’s Like to Work With:
Soapstone’s softness makes it one of the easier natural stones to cut and shape. However, its tendency to scratch means that care is needed during fabrication, installation, and throughout the life of this material.
Quartzite
What It Is:
Quartzite materials can be the ultimate blend of nature’s beauty and strength. Popularity continues to rise with quartzite. This natural stone offers the look of marble with the hardness of granite, making it a favorite for those seeking both aesthetic appeal and long-lasting performance.
Where It Works:
Quartzite is ideal for high-traffic applications, such as kitchens, bathrooms, and outdoors, where both aesthetics and performance are crucial. Its natural elegance and toughness make it a premium option for those who seek the best of both worlds.
What It’s Like to Work With:
Quartzite, with its hardness characteristics, can be challenging to work with. Its hardness and brittleness requires specialized equipment to cut and shape without causing damage. Fabricators appreciate quartzite for its durability, but the material demands careful handling during the fabrication processes.
porcelain
What It Is:
Porcelain is a trending material choice for clients who love sleek, modern surfaces. This engineered material is incredibly durable making it more resistant to heat and scratches. Its non-porous nature means it won’t stain easily or harbor bacteria, making it a low-maintenance option. It’s available in a wide range of colors and patterns, giving you plenty of design flexibility. Plus, it’s available in bookmatched slabs for continuous veinmatching between parts.
Where It Works:
Porcelain is perfect for both indoor and outdoor use due to its UV resistance and non-porous nature. It’s especially great for bathrooms, fireplaces, and outdoor kitchens. Since the pattern is only applied to the top of the material, porcelain is typically finished with a mitered edge.
What It’s Like to Work With:
Porcelain can be challenging to work with due to its high hardness and brittleness. Cutting and shaping porcelain requires specialized equipment to avoid chipping or cracking. Utilizing an optimized CNC saw or sawjet that excels at mitering during the fabrication process helps achieve the desired finish.
sintered Material
What It Is:
Sintered Material is an engineered material that mimics porcelain’s durability, made by blending glass, porcelain, and quartz. This ultra-durable surface resists heat, scratches, and stains. Its zero-porosity finish offers superior liquid resistance, and its ultra-modern appearance is highly appealing to clients.
Where It Works:
Sintered Material excels in high-traffic areas and large, seamless surfaces, including outdoor spaces. Its non-porous nature makes it perfect for countertops, flooring, and wall cladding, offering both functionality and aesthetic appeal in various settings. Straightforward edge profiles are advisable to maintain the integrity of the material.
What It’s Like to Work With:
Sintered Material can be challenging to cut and shape due to its hardness, requiring extra care when mitering to avoid chipping and ensure a sharp edge. When mitering, a high precision machine will be needed to avoid chipping and ensure a precise, seamless edge, highlighting the material’s sleek design.
Exotics (Gemstones)
What It Is:
Exotic gemstones like agate, jasper, and amethyst are not just for jewelry; they can be assembled into a slab with resin to create stunning countertop pieces. These rare, semi-precious stones are luxurious and offer unique, eye-catching patterns that make a bold statement in any space, making them a popular choice for high-end projects like wall features.
Where It Works:
Exotic gemstones are best suited for high-end kitchens, bathrooms, and bars where clients desire a unique, luxurious finish. These materials are all about making a visual statement, so be prepared for the extra care required during fabrication.
What It’s Like to Work With:
Exotic gemstones require careful handling due to their varying hardness, brittleness, and natural fissures. These factors make them challenging to cut and shape, requiring precision machinery to avoid chipping or breakage during fabrication.
Surface Finishes
When it comes to finishing stone, the surface treatment can make a big difference in both appearance and functionality. While most natural stones can be altered to achieve various textures and finishes, engineered stones are typically available only in polished, matte and honed finishes. Here are five popular types of surfacing:
polished
The polished finish is the most common and gives the stone a glossy, mirror-like surface. This finish enhances the stone’s color and pattern, making it look vibrant and luxurious. Polished surfaces are easy to clean but can show scratches and etching more easily.
Honed
A honed finish provides a smooth surface with little to no shine. This finish is achieved by stopping the polishing process before the stone reaches a fully polished surface, resulting in a consistent, flat appearance. Honed surfaces are great for high-traffic areas because they hide scratches and etching better than polished surfaces.
Leathered
This finish gives the stone a smooth but textured feel, similar to leather. It enhances the stone’s natural color & beauty, and hides fingerprints and water spots well. Leathered surfaces are great for adding a unique, tactile element to surfaces.
Matte
Similar to honed, a matte finish provides a flat, non-reflective surface. However, it retains a bit more texture than a honed finish. Matte surfaces offer a modern look and are good at hiding fingerprints and smudges.
Antiqued
Similar to leathered, antiqued finishes give the stone a weathered, aged look. This finish is achieved through a combination of brushing and other techniques to create a surface with a less glossy appearance, resembling the look of natural wear over time. It’s perfect for adding character and a rustic charm to your space.
Optimize your production with park
Understanding the properties and best uses of different materials is crucial for any fabricator. From the sleek durability of porcelain to the luxurious elegance of marble, each material brings its own set of challenges and rewards.
Mastering these materials and utilizing the right equipment will set you apart in the industry. Park Industries® offers advanced CNC machinery, engineered for precision miters that ensure flawless cuts. Our high-performance machines deliver unmatched efficiency, helping you tackle even the most demanding projects. And with the best customer service team in the industry, we’ll ensure you always have the support you need, leaving you with peace of mind on your next fabrication projects.
