Decorative reason? Also, you can bend Corian around corner and create a radius. If you do that with HPL, you have to have a sharp edge. With wood or Corian you can follow a radius around a radius. Also refinish-able and more durable.... and super cool looking if you hit the right colours.
polished slab in a typical countertop thickness stone would be something like a toilet partition.
--------------------------------------- Back in the late 1960's, one of my distributors rehabbed their building, a multistoried industrial brick building that was probably built about 1900.
Part of the building upgrade was a complete renovation of the restrooms.
At least one of the stone toilet partitions was salvaged by one of my associates and turned into a table in his living room.
Cleaning up at least 60 years of crud build up included at least one muriatic acid bath.
The finished product was quite attractive.
Lew
DO:
My emphasis was on avoiding a large amount of any feldspar or mica in any granite. Both are softies and some micas are renowned for delaminating if water catches them unprotected.
What they call stone in the store, as you note, often departs from how a petrographer would classify them and their properties. If you said "granitic stone" to a specialist, it might be akin to a hypnotist saying "faint" to a subject.
My mention of fine-grained sandstone failed to address the fact that quartzite is metmamorphosed sandstone. Good catch.
One question is whether the use environment is likely to be one where sufficient forces are at play where one hard sandstone variety wouldn't survive where a harder one would. That calls for metrics I don't have.
Quartzite has a lot of superior properties going for it. One thing that would not be among them would be repairability in some circumstances. It tends to split across the grains where the unmetamorphosed precursors will split around a grain. If someone does break both, the fault line in a precursor material can be more easily fudged.
Check me on this. Do you know which of the two stones offers more color variations? If the hard unmetamorphosed material was more suitable in color than the quartzite, that might call the nod for some people.
Speaking individually--and trying to get the OP to help us with the trade deficit by buying American--he might want to look at this page showing Kanab Wonderstone (silicified Rhyolite) which would make a real impressive backsplash statement:
Regards,
Edward Hennessey
stuff.http://www.wilsonartcontract.com/Laminate/AEON/>>>> > Solid surface a la Corian or others?
if not maple?
cement. Their red solvent-based stuff is fantastic. I like to be green when possible, but when the eco stuff is twice as pricy and doesn't work as well, I'm unhappy. The green DAP is almost as expensive as the 3M. I'll see if it's any good, to confirm the rave reviews you tout, the next time I laminate.
-- An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. -- Sir Winston Churchill
Dear Toy:
Forget the therapist. Just get the plumber to plumb your own gas hose, with LARGE outlet.
P.S: Send pics soon. We're doing a kinky gay/bi pictorial in 2 months.
The Editor.
-- Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air... -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Rocks are cool. I have a number of slabs from our local rock firm, Sidrock owned by Sid McKeown
What do you think of nephrite countertops?
Luigi
What finish did you use on the cabinets?
Although I must confess that, unlike Rob, I don't get much of a woody over the kitchen appliances.
L.
RDJ:
As covered later in the thread, vertical placement of the slab.
Two, what may arguably be called "snob appeal" when a salesman may be trying to stress the superiority of his offering thusly if there is any chance it could be seen on either face: "The competition actually leaves the underside of their tables cut raw. We finish polish ours."
Three--and this is material--some materials show significant design variation across the slab thickness, particularly those with included elements which expose differently over their length or at angles. See an image search for +orthoceras (slab* OR table*) and you should get a visual on the idea.
Four--another material point: If it gets damaged on one side, if the customer tires of it on one side, they can flip it in some applications.
Regards,
Edward Hennessey
Barring cost. What counter top would you consider to be the most durable, flat (not tile) but easiest to maintaine? My limited experience with stainless steel is that it scratches.
That still leaves the cold touch to the countertop. Wood sounds much more intriguing. Ebony, jarrah, purkleheartless (for the numerous and wonderful splinters!), jatoba.
-- An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. -- Sir Winston Churchill
I wonder if Wilsonart makes an Uba Tuba laminate...
-- I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar and often convincing. -- Oscar Wilde
Ebony slabs 25.5" x 1.5" x 144" would be cheap.
ne,
I would say Quartz. Of all the quartz brands, the Cambria palette is the most versatile and appealing(to me).
I brought up the toilet partition, and I don't think anyone else mentioned a two-sided vertical application. Sure, there are some extremely limited applications for two-sides polished stone, but it makes no sense for slabs to be generally polished that way. It's a waste of time and money. If a special application needs the obverse side polished, it's no big deal to do so.
I suppose that might make it a little harder to stick gum to the underside, but beyond that I'm not sure who would consider that an advantage. Polishing stone takes a lot of time and passes. It makes no sense.
Look at it this way. Your dining room table is wood, right? Does it have a french polished underside? Is there any finish on it at all. Has anyone ever noticed, mentioned or complained that there isn't a finish under there? Usually people that are under the table are too busy trying to get the room to stop spinning to bother with noticing levels of sheen. ;)
I didn't know orthoceras was available in anything larger than a relatively small piece, and those pieces are fairly expensive. I still can't imagine a kitchen done in the stuff - what's the biggest slab you've seen? With all stone there is a better side, a choice is made and that side is polished, then the stone is sent out to local distributors. If something needs both sides polished, the supplier will do it during fabrication.
I would like to see a freestanding curving stone shower enclosure done in the orthoceras, though. That would be spiffy.
Is it already April 1st again? What application can you name where flipping a slab would work? Edge treatment alone would eliminate almost all applications, and sinks, ends, etc. would effectively eliminate all of the rest. A coffee table _might_ qualify_ but a coffee table doesn't take much abuse, and how many people have stone coffee tables custom made where they'd be buying slabs from a distributor?
How does flipping a piece of stone relieve the owner's ennui-de- stone? Thin slabs are pretty much the same on both sides, no?
R
RDJ:
I brought up the toilet partition, and I don't think anyone else mentioned a two-sided vertical application. Sure, there are some extremely limited applications for two-sides polished stone, but it makes no sense for slabs to be generally polished that way. It's a waste of time and money. If a special application needs the obverse side polished, it's no big deal to do so.
I suppose that might make it a little harder to stick gum to the underside, but beyond that I'm not sure who would consider that an advantage. Polishing stone takes a lot of time and passes. It makes no sense.
The sense would be it makes money. If it can be sold that way, for whatever reason, even reasons we may not credit or don't know, it will be made that way.
That's a dull line of reasoning but I wouldn't want to bet on smart against it if, if I see a number of slabs of something done that way around. That's the real benchmark.
Look at it this way. Your dining room table is wood, right? Does it have a french polished underside? Is there any finish on it at all. Has anyone ever noticed, mentioned or complained that there isn't a finish under there? Usually people that are under the table are too busy trying to get the room to stop spinning to bother with noticing levels of sheen. ;)
That's a good position. I'm down with it. People have other positions we may regard as dopey. That doesn't stop them. Mr. X thinks piercings, scarifications and a full funny-papers' body wrap are bug-nuts loony. Then he sees the madhouse walking the streets. I feel paying triple rate for a signature scarf shows insecurity and bad financial management. They sell like hot cakes.
If a salesman can push this stuff on any appeal that makes the slab even SEEM to make the owner more distinguished....people like to be elite and make invidious comparisons.
Then there is an issue that we appreciate: choice. With a doubly-polished stone slab, you do get to pick the side you like, even if it is only one.
Dealer A has 100 slabs of Imperial Roca polished on one side. Dealer B has 100 slabs polished on both sides. Dealer B doubles options to his customers with the same number of slabs. If there is an indisputable difference between the sides, B wins. If he can make any appreciable amount of his customers see any difference, he wins.
I didn't know orthoceras was available in anything larger than a relatively small piece, and those pieces are fairly expensive. I still can't imagine a kitchen done in the stuff - what's the biggest slab you've seen? With all stone there is a better side, a choice is made and that side is polished, then the stone is sent out to local distributors. If something needs both sides polished, the supplier will do it during fabrication.
This is a material I know. Kitchens are done in the marble; sculpture and conference tables too. I have a 3'x3' slab looking at me. I've seen 12'x10'. If you wanted a container of it or other kinds of ammonoid or different Orthoceras slabs, it's doable.
I would like to see a freestanding curving stone shower enclosure done in the orthoceras, though. That would be spiffy.
Is it already April 1st again? What application can you name where flipping a slab would work? Edge treatment alone would eliminate almost all applications, and sinks, ends, etc. would effectively eliminate all of the rest. A coffee table _might_ qualify_ but a coffee table doesn't take much abuse, and how many people have stone coffee tables custom made where they'd be buying slabs from a distributor?
How does flipping a piece of stone relieve the owner's ennui-de- stone? Thin slabs are pretty much the same on both sides, no?
No. In an 1.5" thick fossil slab with included specimens that track discrete layers they can be very different. The same with any rock which changes its composition/ coloration in a stratified way. And there are plenty.
Look at some of the images of the bigger Kanab slabs at the hyperlink mentioned elsewhere in the thread. You ought to see the other face.
So you could have a doubly-polished slab, flip it as a wall hanging or table or architectural divider and really see it turn over a new leaf.
As we tacitly agree, many of these conceptions may not appeal to us. But there are people that they work with.
Regards,
Edward Hennessey
Google, I don't see your posts unless others quote them.
Regards,
EH
Luigi Zanasi wrote in news:ca78023b-5299-4bbb-9431- snipped-for-privacy@p7g2000yqh.googlegroups.com:
Salivate as I might over that stove, it isn't practical in my 8x13 ft kitchen, with 3 doors.
But not a problem for you rich Canucks, right? Why else would I mention it, eh?
-- I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar and often convincing. -- Oscar Wilde
Sanding sealer, primer, + coats enamel, sprayed on the cabinet boxes (A-1 Birch); and the doors/drawer fronts (Temple-Inland's UltraStock MDF). The paint job in the kitchen alone was right at $5k ... lotsa prep/between coats work.
I'm impressed with this particular mdf, which I would normally run the other way using in a kitchen. It's advertised as "water resistant" but I immersed a cutoff in a bucket of water for the better part of two days and it came out the same as it went in ... hell, the best hardwood plywood would not of stood up to that treatment. Heavy though, required three hinges on each cabinet door.
That Capital Gas Range weighs in at over 600lb ... you try not to move it once installed (I rigged up a rolling platform with two big furniture dolly's to get it from the curb into the kitchen, but it still took six of us).
USA made, like they used to make things, it is a precision piece of equipment. No shortcuts in the manufacturing and the 'fit and finish' is something your rarely see these days, like a fine piece of furniture. One of the wow factors is that you can put a burner on low heat, lay a piece of paper on it and it won't catch on fire.
You gotta be a cook to appreciate what a cooking machine this thing is ... and it's not wasted on the husband, a private banker whose passion is cooking.
Google, I don't see your posts unless others quote them.
Regards,
EH
That is something unique to you. We see the posts, originals and all. You need to look into your end for the solution to this problem. Have you got him in the block sender list?
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