What are the best kitchen counter materials

Boyoboyoboy!!! With that kind of control a b=E9arnaise sauce 'ribbon' would be a snap. I file the recipe for that sauce under 'Coronary sauces'

I don't really have the space for it either, so my 30" NG range with a gas-fired convection oven will have to do.

Still, a guy can dream, wot?

Amazing. Does it cost accordingly?

Yeah, it's always fun to move something like that around on brand new flooring.

That's a Wow! Factor, alright, and it's why I much prefer a gas stove over an electric.

Very good.

-- I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar and often convincing. -- Oscar Wilde

Hardly. Anyone using NewsProxy now that used it when newsgroups were actually popular probably has Google blocked. That was due to the volume of crap that came from Google initiated by every wanna be troll in knee pants. Fortunately, that activity seems to have all but disappeared.

L:

It's a property of my blocking posts through that interface which should have been mentioned. My apologies.

As Mike says, Google has historically been permissive with spam to the degree where a few groups were deluged. Maybe things have shifted. I'll look at the things with the filter off for a few days.

Regards,

Edward Hennessey

CA:

As a counter top material, no. As a backsplash element, some among the differing grades from as many deposits lumped under this and other names would work with attentive sealing.

I have an installation with large trilobite cephalons cut into featured tiles which has done well in a humid environment not dissimilar to one spaced off a kitchen countertop.

Regards,

Edward Hennessey

sure, for humid or even water splashed areas. but soapy or greasy environments, like a kitchen backsplash?

Do you think the dealer can convince _all_ of his customers to subsidize the cost of the unnecessary polished side for the benefit of the few? I would tend to think that would be a tough sell.

I've probably been in 30 or 40 stone yards over the years and in different states and I never encountered a slab polished on both sides as standard. It's just not done. If someone wants both sides polished, they pay for the slab and the additional side polishing and the yard will polish the other side. It's the only thing that makes sense financially for the yard and the purchaser.

RDJ:

It's always a pleasure to air ideas and exchange observations.

Do you think the dealer can convince _all_ of his customers to subsidize the cost of the unnecessary polished side for the benefit of the few? I would tend to think that would be a tough sell.

I've probably been in 30 or 40 stone yards over the years and in different states and I never encountered a slab polished on both sides as standard. It's just not done. If someone wants both sides polished, they pay for the slab and the additional side polishing and the yard will polish the other side. It's the only thing that makes sense financially for the yard and the purchaser.

Somethings are arduous and expensive to cut and polish, some petrified woods for instance. Many yards with their own equipment won't touch it. The few dealers who do process it in the country will rarely finish both sides unless they come on a piece that really sings a statement prepared like that. For special orders, the buyer commands.

A bygone friend handled a lot of Moroccan dimensional fossil stone. He had success with plates polished on one side. Because that material is easily finished--plus shows different aspects across a slab width-- he ordered two slabs he had picked out as cuts to get the dual treatment. He ordered more after success with selling those. Then he ordered relief sculptures, then sculptures in the round. Why? He sold it. He sold it to clients who liked the results and could afford to serve their appreciations. I know what it cost him to have the sculptures executed in Morocco. He did well.

In response to your first paragraph, a dealer can stock one-sided slabs in disproportion to two sided. They can be priced differently. They would be. And looking at the pieces done on one side just might be an incentive for certain clients to go big for two. One customer doesn't have to subsidize another.

To your second paragraph, the world stone fabrication center is Italy. They are good, mechanized and able to deliver a product cheaper than it can be custom polished here for a lot less than a small U.S. yard can. Most of the African production gets shipped to Italy before it ever hits a port here.

Of course, if a customer wants a particular landed slab to get double treatment, it's not making a round trip to the boot. However, some real finicky customers have been known to work through a local dealer and choose blocks and slabs at the quarry face in faraway lands.

I fully agree with you that slabs that get the 360 degree work up aren't standard. To repeat, most rock doesn't have the intrinsic properties to specially warrant that. Some does. "Some" is a fulcral word.

In many applications, we further accord twin polishing would be practically superfluous and of dubious benefit for an admirer without an inspecion mirror. Yet there are always people who can be sold on the sizzle: white-walled tires, a Swiss-Army knife with 110 blades instead of 100....

In your tours of stone yards, you will have noticed the high attrition rate in the business. If you were in that game, you'd be thinking of innovative ways to selectively style and present your products and cultivate market niches. Maybe there's a single notion somewhere in what I observed successful friends do with unorthodox and susceptible product that works.

BTW, I think "Stone World" magazine has a web site. You'll enjoy that.

Later and regards,

Edward Hennessey

solid GOLD is the best,but it is a little pricey right now.

Len

Concrete. They do it all the time on the DIY channel.

-Zz

Hardly. Anyone using NewsProxy now that used it when newsgroups were actually popular probably has Google blocked. That was due to the volume of crap that came from Google initiated by every wanna be troll in knee pants. Fortunately, that activity seems to have all but disappeared.

Unique in that "he" will have to make the changes to be able to correct the problem. I did not mean to say that only he has the problem, just that the problem had to be corrected on his end.

: Arborite/Formical/High pressure laminate? : Solid surface a la Corian or others? : Paperstone? : Wood - vertical "real" butcher block or horizontal laminations? What : wood if not maple? : Stone (granite, marble)? : Others I missed?

I'm a big fan of laminate. In our new kitchen we're using gray laminate countertops from Ikea. Look great, really easy to keep clean, totally non-absorbent, etc. I'll be building a rolling cart with a butcherblock top, at some point.

-- Andy Barss

dark granite.

Many granites are grained and have fissures. They are not glassy. So if you get one - make sure the top is like glass. No indents. Even if glassed over with a sealer - food will grow bad stuff there.

The best is the man made quartz. It is a strong and can be beautiful to pure white.

We have a center of the kitchen table - rolling - small slab of granite on it - pink granite. It has pores all over it. It is sealed but there are still holes everywhere.

We protect it from direct food. Sad, we would have preferred a glassy top. Such is life.

Mart> Edward Hennessey wrote: