I have honed counters with honed edges. I chose a fabricator who owns the equipment to do this; not all can. If your fabricator doesn't have this capability, can you switch fabricators to one who can hone the edges for you?

Yes, I can find another fabricator. I was just wondering if I was crazy expecting honed edges.

Nope, not one bit. It would look very weird to have honed tops and polished edges. Good luck finding a new fabricator.

I'd definitely look for a new fabricator. If you are having problems already, I'd be really worried about things once you'd paid a deposit or the whole amount! You are totally right that it will look bad. It'll make the honed bit look flat and dull and the polished but will look like it wasn't finished. As you say, how is he going to refinish if there are any fabrication scratches or marks?

You want honed, get it all honed. Don't settle for almost right.

Many joe blow ''fabricators'' do not have the proper equipment to hone the cut edge of a factory honed slab to match. Not to mention the issues with the seams that will occur with those who aren't experienced with honed materials. You need the fabricator who can take a quarry polished slab and hone it in the shop. He will cost more, and the stone will cost more as well. But, it will now be ''repairable''if damaged rather than ruined.

Just be very careful about your expectations of a dark honed granite. It will grab and hold onto dirt, but especially hand oils, much more than it's polished counterpart. Fingerprints can really be a major crazy maker with honed unless you are OK with them from the beginning. That rougher texture doesn't release oils easily either. Honed is more difficult to maintain and live with than a polished stone. Which is why many stoners have moved to the leathered finish instead as it's texture hides the dirt and oils better.

I had to pay the deposit to get them out to "template". He actually planned to just take some measurements, not actually template. But he pointed out to me that the drywall is not straight, so there's going to be a gap that I'll have to cover with a tile backsplash. I told him I'm not doing a backsplash (I'm not doing it right away), so he had to go out to his truck and get materials for templating, and he used my knife because he didn't have one. So, yeah, a different fabricator is a good idea. And the deposit is on a credit card.

And I'm perfectly comfortable with finger prints. I just can't handle shiny. I had planned to use a different fabricator, but then he doubled his price from the "ball park" he gave me to decide to go with granite to the official quote. His explanation was that the stone was so popular, the supplier had sold out and he had to go to a more expensive source. I went back to the slab supplier, and my slab was still there with my fingerprints.

And around here, fabricators haven't "moved" to leathered. When we did the current kitchen 3 years ago, there was no honed. At all. There were a few leathered options, but the texture is almost as bad as shiny. That's when I chose slate. Now, they've finally started getting in the honed finishes.

And I don't have seams in my layout.

So, what granite is it? That would be very helpful information for you to tell us. In any case, I would run from a fabricator that doesn't know the word "honed". That is ludicrous.

Also, no one's walls are perfectly straight. That is what "scribing" is for. What-the-heck kind of fabricator is this? I am certain your walls are not as wonky as the walls as I had, and yet I do not have any gaps between my granite counter and wall because my fabricator knew his job, and had years of experience.

Regarding fingerprints, I think that is more a function of what the granite looks like, rather than polished vs. honed finish. As an extreme example, Absolute Black granite shows every mark because it is solid black - just like a black car shows everything. My granite has a swirly pattern, with a mix of taupes, whites, grays, blues and blacks, and is polished. You just can't see anything among all that pattern. On the other hand, a solid granite, and/or a very dark granite with little pattern, will show smudges, oils and fingerprints whether it's polished or honed.

It's absolute black. :D I'm also not a fan of patterned granite.

If you getting Absolute Black granite, then I have two pieces of advice:

- do not have it sealed. Real AB granite is so dense that sealant will just sit on top, and create a haze. Many complaints about AB arise from the installer sealing the granite--because they seal all granite counters as a matter of course after they've installed them. Then the granite shows hazy and streaky, and the homeowner thinks it's the granite's fault. They will then have to remove the sealant, which can be done, but is a PITA, and could have been avoided by not sealing the AB in the first place.

- make sure it is real AB granite. Unfortunately, when AB became popular, other similar stones came on the market to jump on the bandwagon. Some of this "AB" isn't really black, but more of a dark gray, and then dyed black to look like AB. The imitation AB will etch, and leave gray spots as certain liquids come in contact with it that remove the dye.

To be sure your AB is real, put a little lemon juice on a sample from where you are getting your AB. If the AB is not real, the sample will show gray where the lemon juice was. Real AB is so dense it would not be affected by lemon juice.

As an update, the sales person is claiming that when the guy didn't know what honed is, it was because his English isn't great. She says that honed and leathered is the same thing, and that some stones, when they try to leather them, become honed. Other stones get the leathered look. That may be true of some stones, but I have absolutely seen some stones in all 3 finishes.

They are doing up a sample, and if I like it, we'll proceed. If I don't like it, then I'll get my deposit back. I'm skeptical, but I'm letting them do the sample so that nobody can say I didn't give them a fair shot.

Honed and leathered finishes are *not* the same thing. But if you like the finish they provide, then I guess it doesn't matter if they don't know what they're talking about. But yeah, I'm skeptical, too.

I would take the suggestions above regarding honed AB very seriously. My contractor gave me the warnings about oil and fingerprint marks on honed AB. I brought home samples and determined it was not something I could live with.

Here is a photo that someone posted in another thread about this stone:

Thread with photos of honed AB in a real kitchen

A bit OT, but I just posted these on a different thread and had the images handy. Examples of Black Pearl (top to bottom): honed, polished, lightly leathered w/o sealant, and lightly leathered with sealant (or maybe my fabricator said enhancer...not sealant?):

Enhanced is just a different type of sealant. I looked at this stone yesterday and that is what the lady at my stone yard said anyway. Both are sealed, different product.

Everything you have written raises huge red flags indicating these folks do not know what they are doing...if you can I would LEAVE asap-I made the mistake of having bad fabricators-my builder recc them, of course, and they had the stone I wanted...a year later, that damaged stone is sitting in my basement, I am out 10K, and I have a lovely new stone, by wonderful fabricators, and the difference in quality is stunning!