Sooo FRUSTRATING. To get what you want means starting over--you know that right? No way to put back what was cut off and you need the extra inch on one edge!! It's curious that it appears they matched the smaller veining to the left....I don't even see that on your slab pic.

This probably happened when cutting the bevels.

A butt joint on the top of a large island or on a wall installation will match exactly.

Unless the bevel is cut with the top edge of the bevel exactly at the edge of the slab, which I don't think it is, because it will chip, you are going to lose some material at the edges.

It is a waterfall on two sides and we bought 4 bookmatched slabs as we needed extra material for other part of kitchen. The other side matched and that is not the side/pattern of the one you see in the first picture.

Vein matching should be really close on book matched slabs. It should not be noticeably off even if it had to be cut back.

The beauty of a book matched seam over a sequential seam is that you can cut the slab back and still be able to get a perfect match. Whatever you remove from the first slab, you also have to remove from its mirror slab. The slabs don't only match on the edge, they match everywhere. If you cut the slabs exactly in half, you would end up with four smaller book matched slabs (actually 2 sets of book matched slabs). See modified picture below

The only problem with this is that you have to have enough left over to actually cover the island after the cut back, so your primary slab needs to be at least a few inches longer than needed for the island itself.

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The OP has a bad book match. If there was sufficient material for the island, the fabricators should have done a better book match, if not they should have communicated the problem with the OP.

Ask them if they lost material at the edge when cutting the bevel for that particular side of the waterfall. They may have removed more from one slab than the other, and then it will no longer match.

The part colored blue matched perfect. the yellow which is soo bookmatched infront of our eyes did not. they only used two slabs. one for the top countertop and the second slab they took left side of the second slab for the right side of the island and the right side for the left side of the island

If you have four book matched slabs for the island, then all four seams should be really close. The order of operations should be that the waterfalls are cut first. If there is material lost in the bevel, then then that same amount of material is removed from the left and right side of the top. The middle of the top is then cut and all seams will match pretty close. There will be some slight drift of the pattern through the thickness, but done correctly it shouldn't be noticeable.

Regardless of how they did on the island or the other seams or how many slabs were involved, the seam in your picture is a book matched seam and it is not done well. The other seams may be done better than expected, but they obviously removed material off one slab without mirroring that removal on the other slab which means you no longer have a book matched seam. You have close to a book matched seam.

@bry911 not all four are for the island🙃. The island size is one full slab only so no seams and then waterfa on both sides.

M S - See my post above for my response to the two slabs. You made that clarification as I was posting and so I responded to it.

ETA: Just to clarify. I am not saying they did a bad job. I am saying that one particular seam is not a good book matched seam. That doesn't necessarily mean that it would be reasonable for them to do better given the circumstances. We really don't know all the circumstances. That is not a great book match and that is really all we know.

Thanks. @bry911 for all the feedback. I am meeting the fabricator on Monday to see what happened. not settling for this. we paid extra money for these slabs and they are not cheap. each slab is $2200 and this is the showcase of the house. if one kf the slab had major imperfection they should have called me and we could have repl it from MSI.

@M S - I want to reiterate, that there are certain restrictions to make a two slab bookmatch work. The island has some constraints on size and there is no room for any mistakes on one of the bookmatched seams. Basically, you can mess up on the first bookmatch and recut it, but allows for no mistakes on the second match and so it is reasonable for a fabricator to refuse to guarantee an exact match. However, this really needs to be communicated to you in the beginning. To safely guarantee an exact match you really need four bookmatched slabs.

This doesn't mean it has to be cut exactly on the edge, in fact, you typically have to move it back some, but it does mean there are no do-overs and so a fabricator may refuse to guarantee it.

Here is what it will look like.

Again, what you have may have been the best they could reasonably achieve given your situation and if your contract disclaims this, there may be little you can do.

IMO the issue began with the fact that the slap was exactly the size of the island so no way to jiggle the side walls to match .Those pieces for the waterfall had to be cut so not possible to have it lok like it just folded down which BTW is the ideal fror a waterfall and I sure hope you have a very contemporay kitchen since IMO the only way waterfalls look best also nothing in the counter .

@Patricia Colwell Consulting do not agree with you. the cabinetry is 3 inches less than the slab for that reason.they had plenty to play with. or at least call me to say they hit a snag or going to hit a snag. i am not the first to use these type of slabs for waterfall. this is not on me. they came and digitized and templated. not paying my fabricator 10k for this work to have this result. i paid for the slab seperatly already.

"Why should $20,000 worth of countertops be "the showcase of the house"?"

Because that is what they want. If the fabricator can't achieve that how about they just don't take the money. That is the crux of it.

The real problem has little to do with customer expectations, and a lot to do with suppliers and fabricators overpromising in pursuit of more money. That is the reason we see so many people here shocked that they were promised and paid for A+ and received C-. Then they are told that C- is all they could expect for what they paid.

Why didn't the fabricator set proper expectations? That is a rhetorical question because we all really know why.

Thanks @bry911. make me wounder what was the point of me going down to their shop (they invited me) to agree with them on the layout and cuts and they are the ones to standup the slabs and tell me how it is book matched and how this side will look and how the other side will.

Let me guess, it's the Left side that didn't match up. You can almost tell from the photo that it wasn't going to. Was the veining to be matched measure to make sure it would line-up?

It was the right side of the island which surprisingly did not when it should have since it is the the one you see when the slab are stood up in the pic.

Is there a "focal point side" and a "non-focal point side" to the the island? Is the view of one end of it more important than the other end? Are there any cutouts in the top?

If it's an uninterrupted top could it be reinstalled the other way?

A few months back there was almost this scenario except one waterfall was a very good match and the other end not so good, and of course the not so good end was the focal end and the perfect side could not be seen all that easily.

From a technical standpoint, it may be salvageable. It may be possible to rip the mismatched end off with a rail saw, rip the front edge off the sink side of the countertop (you've got a fat front rail anyway), rip the right end off the mismatched waterfall, pull the sink top forward, glue the waterfall into the matching position, and reprofile and polish the ripped edges.

Your sink position would look better, but you've lost an inch of cantilever, you've got a 1/8" thicker caulk line at the floor, you're out 3K if I did it, but your problems would be over in a day.

I did something similar on a sink replacement job. Had to pull the whole island forward and rip the sink edges. I put back the missing radii in the inside corners which put the estone back under warranty. I wrote about it here; it's around here somewhere.

"I am going to make a big deal and not pay them the balance due and will not till they change that waterfall side."

Excellent idea. Ignore the threats to lien your home please.

Tell them that if it isn't refunded in full and/or made right, you will post pictures of this embarassment on www.stonefabricatorsalliance.com and everywhere else.

They knew it looked that way. It should never have been loaded onto the truck. They could have fixed it at the shop per above and if you noticed the missing inch of cantilever, they could have apologized and offered a slight discount for their mistake. You never, ever, let customers see your mistakes. Ever.

@Joseph Corlett, LLC, so I met the fabricator today to understand what happened and the solution. so… they found some imperfections on the countertop of the island on the sink side(not the overhang) side. so they had to cut 1 inch off and this decreased the island from 64 inches to 63 inches on the DimY. this caused the book match alinement issue. very upset they did not call once they found this issue. could have called MSI and got the slabs switched.

their solution is to cut 3/4 inch from the countertop sink side and then cut 3/4 also on the waterfall sides. this will align the veins and pattern again way better than it is now.

thoughts?

That's an excellent idea and what I described 3 posts above. Good luck.