When we visited a fabrication facility we had a tour of the process from beginning to end. We viewed slabs being cut and I thought they were being cut by water jet which made the cut in a very thin slice - not anywhere near the 3-4 inches you refer to. I would think the cut would be measured in millimeters.

That being said it is hard to picture how your granite appears under the white pieces. It could be that under the edges of those pieces there is enough change in the granite flow to appear as being not matched in the finished product. The shop we visited does their templating via digital camera and so they don't use templating strips.

I think your finished product is beautiful! I know you are disappointed in the seam matching but I really don't think they did too bad of a job. Your slab selection is magnificient and pictures of the finished kitchen are eagerly awaited.

First of all, I'm not in the business, I'm just someone who had their granite installed a month ago. Amazingly, it is very similar to yours! You know it's not going to match perfectly! I thought it was more important to have nice, smooth seams. I didn't expect the "pattern" to match perfectly. It's so busy people don't notice where the seams are you really have to look for them. This was the best picture I could pick out from my install. Hope this makes you feel better.

http://s302.photobucket.com/albums/nn83/neesie818/?action=view¤t=IMG_5011.jpg&t=1214572595802

Sorry about the picture link, I've posted many pictures but for some reason copy and pasting the message board link at photobucket doesn't seem to work anymore!

mustbnuts:

I am in the business, and have been for 23 years.

I think nessie said it best....
"You Know it's NOT going to match Perfectly".

MOST people that come into your kitchen are NEVER going to
notice the seam's appearance.... except guys like me - that
live, breathe, eat and sleep Natural Stone. HA! ;)

I think pretty much all of your guests
will be overwhelmed by the "WOW" factor of the
"look" of your Granite in general........ I think that the seam
will be something that is barely noticed by anyone else....

Because you have a full height splash in that area, this may
have influenced the way the pieces were cut out too.

It's hard for me to make a really accurate coment on the
two pictues that you have posted...

Your Fabricator probably can answer best why the veins do
not match perfectly at the seam... he DID however, try to
match them up as best as possible, and he DID gat the vein
direction to flow at the seam, which is a good thing.

Hope that helps ya

kevin

Thank you all for responding. I am learning to live with it. I know the area cut was the same slab. I just thought that it would be like cutting a piece of paper in half and taping (or in this case--glueing) it back together. I would know the seam was there but it would be a perfect match. It isn't but I do love my granite and think it is beautiful. I appreciate the responses very much.

Neecie--I wasn't able to see your beautiful granite. If you go to Photobucket, click on the html box under the picture, it will copy the link for you and then you just hit paste in the body of the message and the picture will come up when you preview the message. I would love to see your granite!

Mustb, I hope all is going well and you can just relax this weekend! It sounded like a super stress out point! No one else will notice your seam, I promise.

I just got my granite installed yesterday as well. I see I'm not the only one that is not 100% happy with the seams. Although I didn't think they were too bad although one was better than the other. So after I read your comment I decided to see if I could improve things a bit. I had read that some people have had trouble with permanent markers. So I looked for some that matched my granite. I could only find 2, 1 black and one red although I know I have others. Anyway I touched up my 2 seams with them. I can do better after I find the rest of my colors. I tested them on a scrap of granite and they do become permanent after a while. I'm pretty sure one day they will wear off but until then. They look much better.

Wow, larrylwill, that's an amazing difference!

Larrylwill, I'm amazed. That looks great! And from magic markers of all things!

Wow Larry, that is amazing. I am not so much worried about the seam. I will always know that it is there. I am more concerned about the stone matching from one side to the other of the seam since they were cut from the same part of the slab. I think they did a great job with yours! It matches and flows on the top picture. You can tell it was just cut from the same place and just seamed. Mine doesn't do that.

However, that said, this morning I cleaned my stone. I can't stand the dirt and dust in this house one more second. What a beautiful stone. It is amazing. I am finding all sorts of quartz crystals in it. The garnets are to die for. It is amazing what nature can create and I consider myself to be a lucky custodian of it!

The seam on the longest wall is aboyt 17ft. That one has the better of the 2 seams and is about in the middle. That one was from another stone. However the 2 stones I picked were book matched. Meaning one was polished on the front side and one on the back side. So sitting side to side the grain was continuous, making those veins line up was not so bad I just lost a couple of inches for the edges. The 2nd seam is at the end of the L and the piece is only about 1ft wide. That slab was cut from the same slab as the L just below the end, and on the picture it looked like it was a good match, glued together it was not. Since I had to go to Atlanta, the stone cutter followed us around to the various warehouses to try the template to show me the seams. He also had to cut from the another piece for that long wall and was trying to find a good match when I noticed the 2nd piece was upside down from the first. We had them turn it around and saw that it was a perfect match. I don't have a picture of theme side by side but you can see what I am talking about with these.

Like you were amazed that we keep finding quartz in ours also and it has a lot of flash we didn't see in the warehouse. I am really happy with our little piece of the mountian and you will be also. I'm pretty sure over time we will both forget the seams. I bet nobody would even notice but I also bet you like me will show them anyway.

Isn't it amazing how a Natural Stone Countertop justs
looks SO GOOD in your Home???

OK.. I am biased - I think that what ever GOD made -
I want to have that close to me too!!!!

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!

kevin

It looks like there was plenty of room for cutting a backsplash on the back side of the templates so that can't be used as an excuse. Usually you want the grain to wrap, looks like they had quite a bit of room allowed for that.

Blades aren't that thick, maybe an 1/8 th of an inch, or 3/16 ths of an inch, even dressing the seam doesn't take off more than an 1/16 th of an inch.

Looks simple, slice the seam then make the other cuts. They only thing I can think of is if they cut that small bumpout to the left before they cut the seam. When you cut that way, the saw blade will go past a couple of inches and waste that much stone.

I agree that granite seams won't be perfect match, but it looks like mustbnuts went to a lot of trouble to attend the layout so that the seams would match. It should have been like cutting a piece of paper, maybe a tiny offset in the angled grain. That looks like two or three inches!

It is a pretty stone, but that isn't the issue. The issue is that the pictures of the template showed it was to be cut a certain way and it wasn't.

The fabricator should remove this top and redo it correctly or give you a substancial discount for botching the seam.

And one other question, why did they cut it in the first place? Usually an L top is not a problem unless you are dealing with an elevator or a difficult access situation.

This isn't rocket science, get what you paid for. The pictures prove it all.