The best person to answer this question is Joshua at Creative Soapstone. He doesn't seem to post much anymore but you could probably email him through his website. He's a really good guy and will probably get back to you. You could also try contacting your fabricaor, if they are experienced with soapstone. My guess would be that you can sand them a few times with no negative effects. My counters were sanded 3 times in 6 months because the first two time weren't right and you'd never know.

Thank you cheri127, I've had recommendations from Joshua through email in the past. What I was really looking for is homeowners, NOT professionals who have sanded down their own soapstone and if they have done it how often.
Since I've had mine in over 3 years, and I've never touched them, I was wondering what other people had done with theirs.

Wow, this got bumped to page 2 so quick!! I haven't been over here in kitchens in a long time! I forgot how fast this one moves!

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

I think you would go through more $$$ worth of sandpaper than the cost of the soapstone before you could sand them away.

I have only sanded on mine where I wanted to adjust a contour or refine the smoothness across a seam. It was a lot of work to do by hand on Belvedere, which is hard. Variability in hardness will significantly affect how easy it is to remove a ding. If you have soft stone with hard inclusions, a hard sandpaper backing surface is necessary to keep from making waves. Electric or pneumatic sanding will be easier work, but mistakes could make things worse.

kas

we only sanded a small section where we put the seems. DH used an random orbital sander. What we found is that the varying hardness of the soapstone caused it to not sand super flat. It's not noticeable by sight, but the areas he sanded aren't as flat feeling as the rest. If we ever need to do any additional sanding, he'll get a harder pad for his sander (actually, he plans on getting different sander as the Bosch vibrates too much and hurts his hands).

You can't tell by looking where he sanded and where he didn't. Once oiled, it all looked exactly the same.

My soapstone is 3.5 years old and pretty scratched and bunged up... and I love it just the way it is. I haven't sanded it.

Have you tried just oiling it really well?

Hi,
I sanded all my countertops, four years ago when I honed and fabricated them.
I found that unless you want the "leathered" surface, you need to use a hard sanding block. I subsequently found that a metal-backed diamond-coated sanding disc for the random orbital did as good a job, faster than by hand, but the discs are $40 a piece. I bought a 220 and a 400 disc.
Casey

I just remembered that Pluckymama sanded her counters multiple times with varying grits trying to solve some problems she was having. Joshua finally sanded them for her and she was quite happy. I can't remember for sure but I think she did them herself at least twice, maybe three times. Her counters didn't wear out from all that sanding so I wouldn't worry about that.

Yes I've oiled them really well, they definitely look better oiled, but many scratches and dings still show. Thanks for the tips sombreiul.

We ended up with a few nasty scratches along the back of the peice over the dishwasher. I think they happened when we were uncrating it - about 2" long and going from back to front where one piece of stone scraped against the face of the other peice.

Those DH used a sanding block on (wrapped sand paper around it). It didn't take much effort and now you can't see them at all. Before that, oiling didn't make much of a difference.

I've taken to spot sanding (my finger with a small piece of fine sandpaper) any scratches I find before I oil (which I've only done twice since installation - it needs it again). Speaking of sanding - I bet my wood filler is dry and I can go sand that and get back to painting. I am so, so sick of painting!

Can I just say this post scares the crap out of me?

I am scared I will be you in 3 years and that while now I'm craving authenticity/patina for our 1913 house it will just look, as you say, "banged up." (We've got barocca slabs on hold-also soft-and I keep wavering whether this is the right decision...)

What concerns me is what macybaby alluded to--that there are different parts of the soapstone (veins/deposits/inclusions) that are not of uniform strength. I can scratch the bulk of our soapstone with my fingernail, but the veins are much harder cannot be scratched with a fingernail. It seems to me that me just sanding away at them would leave the veins standing proud of the rest of the material.

What kaseki referenced above-that it is hard to sand the hard soapstones-makes sense. I'd think only those with the soft stones are the ones feeling they need to sand out the big dents/scratches, cause folks with the harder soapstones are getting them as much or at all (depending on the variety)

littlesmokie, in hindsight, I wish I would have gone with a harder variety. I have 3 small children, at the time when they were installed there were only 2. My kids sit at the island regularly, and they are very HARD on the counters. I have fork marks, scratches, dings from my 5 year old playing the drums with her spoon and fork when she was 3, and a couple of really large gauges. When we have parties if someone opens a wine bottle and rests it on the counter, it leave an imprint of the bottom of the wine bottle, I have several of those (we love wine-lol). The first few scratches and dings were the hardest to get over, I became accustomed to it though. But now 3 1/2 years later, I want to freshen them up a bit.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my counters, but with 3 kids, I think it would have been wiser to go with a harder variety.

littlesmokie I guess it will depend a lot on your situation. My soapstone countertops are just about 3 years old and look pretty much as pristine as the day they were install. There are a few very minor scratches and dings. Dings fill in with a black sharpie and poof! they are gone. Scratches eventually "oil" out. But I am single with no kids and don't cook all that much. When I do I make sure all bottle or can opening, etc. is done on a cutting board. And I do have one of the harder varieties: Julia.