jdesign_gw: When you miter or rabbet veined material, you lose the thickness of the saw blade from the pattern, known as saw "kerf". The only way to keep that loss to an absolute minimum is to miter on a V-grooving machine. No matter how a sintered edge is made, it must be profiled at least minimally. That minimum will cut through the "picture" on the top and expose the un-veined material.

dwataha: My customers acknowledge in writing that I'm not responsible for any damages when I remove tops and agree to pay for any repairs (nearly impossible on sintered) at $150.00 per hour or no Joe for them. Depending on their thickness and how they were bonded to the substrate, recycling may not be cost effective.

I am remodeling my kitchen and trying to decide on countertops for indoors, so I was looking at discussions. I thought I would comment on Dekton too. I currently have corian (or something similar) in my kitchen. I like the corian and have little complaints other than I don’t love the color/pattern options. I have Dekton outside. I put it out there about ten years ago, when people here had no idea how to install it nor had even heard of it. They installed it incorrectly (the company had insisted they install, luckily). It cracked from the corner and they came out and put a brand new piece in. It has lasted outside in all weather ever since and been great! I have one tiny seam behind the grill, so not noticeable to me, but would be if it wasn’t hidden. This picture is unwashed and unused for the winter. The thing to know is the edges don’t carry any pattern that is on top. But, it handles heat fresh off the grill as well as direct sunlight, snow and rain. If you don’t live somewhere who can fix it if it cracks, I may hesitate. My hesitation now is cost and feel. It is a bit rough (very little bit, but present) and, inside, I like the smoothness of corian or quartz. The funny thing is the roughness may just be that it has not been washed for 8 months!

Porcelain takes a top notch installer. All the edges have to be mitered to look like stone. Many more places to make mistakes. If you have a GREAT installer and have seen several of their installs go for it. In my market all I’ve seen is chips and bad filler so I won’t touch it.