happymommy:

the answer to your question wil depend on two main things:

1. how big is your island and the layout of the island in general

and

2. the sizes of the slabs currently available to accomdate your design
of your island's countertop assembly......

Most of us Fabricators do NOT have a "stone stretcher" (ha!)
....so we are limited to work with what is available (dimensionally)

IF you have a drawing that you can post - WITH dimensions
that shows where your sink and / or cooktop will go -
I am sure that those of us that do this for a living will
be able to chime in and give you some realistic advice

kevin

I am still in the planning stages, but I am thinking that the island will be one flat rectangular island measuring 5Âw x 11Âl x 3Âh. The only thing on the island will be a prep sink in one corner of the island. First off, what do you think of an island this huge? Second, does a huge island like this necessarily mean I'll need two slabs of soapstone.

Thanks, Kevin, for taking the time to respond again to my incessant posts. I am learning as I go.

Different Kevin here,
An Island that size will most likely be in two pieces. We just did a solid slate slab island 120 inches long by 56 inches with a sink cutout. It was a specially ordered slab. I've never seen a slab of soapstone as big as you're describing.
One good way to do a seamed island that big is to get two pieces of stone that are book matched. Very cool looking.
Side note: Forgot to bring the wife's camera to work, sorry. I see in your other post that someone took some pics for you.

It's possible that you may find a slab large enough - just depends on whatÂs available at the slab yard. There are slabs big enough, but I would expect to have to use two, and just be pleasantly surprised if you find one large enough. We ended up adding butcher block to the end of one slab. We liked the mix of materials since itÂs a big area and it kept us from having seams.

what you are saying is that your "finished" dimension
of your countertop will be 60" x 133"?

IF this is the case, IMHO - your choices of stones will be
relatively small as slab lengths longer than 130" are not
that abundant - mainly due to stone type and the size of
the gang saws used to cut the blocks into slabs.

Ditto to what kevinb said - you may have to resign yourself
to a countertop (that is approaching the dimensions of an
aircraft carrier) and have a center seam -
certainly not the end of the world,
and you'll have a much larger field of materials
to choose from. Definately do the book match if your stone
is going to have any amount of pronounced movement.

hope that helps

kevin

happymommy, we had to do two slabs on our 11 footer with a sink in the center. We were not happy with our seam at first but the builder had the tile guys work on it some more until it's barely noticeable. We have New Venetian Gold Granite so it wasn't that difficult to match it up. The more movement, the harder to match.

Thank you all for your help! Can someone explain what book matched means?

So I would think that soapstone would be awful to match up then, right? Maybe I'll have to go with absolute black granite then. Dang.

Here's my understanding of "book" matching slabs....

"Book-matched" means that the two slabs are mirror images of each other. Think of it this way, stone is cut into slices, much like a loaf of bread. Typically, each "slice" is finished on the same side, so two slabs that come from right next to each other on the same big block look almost identical to each other. So, set next to each other on an island, you couldn't match up the veins at the seam. With a book-matched pair of slabs, they are finished on opposite sides, so when you align them, the seams look almost like an inkblot on a folded piece of paper. With a good seam, book-matched slabs should look like they "go" together.

Since I probably just completely confused you, perhaps this not-very-good, quickie illustration will make it more clear (those squiggly lines are supposed to be veins)...

Happymommy,
Soapstone is not awful to match up. Even if you're not able to get bookmatched pieces(which is explained perfectly by Holligator)you can still get a great looking seam in an island.

I understand it perfectly now! Thank you guys for the education. Holligator: your description and illustration were so helpful. Thanks again!