Check out the end of Bee's thread on her new Super White for some of my own questions about cracks in quartzite. I recently put in some Super White of my own and had some subtle cracks that the fabricator swears are part of the stone and can happen easier with quartzite and some marbles. If its noticed before the fabrication I'd imagine you'd want to avoid it, but I'm no expert in that area. Is it really a crack you can feel or is it just a vein running against the normal flow of the slab? As far as honed vs polished. I strongly recommend getting a chunk of your slab cut off and have a piece of it honed and part of it polished. That really helped us decide and actually changed our minds after we saw it side by side. For us, we felt Honed would resist/hide the subtle etching more but might stain a bit more. On the other hand, polished will show etching easier, but is supposedly more resistant to staining since the sealant can create a more impenetrable surface. To the best of my knowledge those statements are true, but your experience may vary. If your stone is one that never etches then honed doesn't have as much as a negative. In our slab there are some clear-ish portions that really became cloudy with the honed look but are stunning in the polished finish. That really swayed us towards polished.

clowns was an understatement. were the installers connected to your purchase of the stone? sometimes they send out their own guys. Or did you find these 'pros' yourself after purchasing the stone on your own time? in any case, they owe you a replacement, or the ability to fix what they've damaged. I don't know if those spider cracks around the sink can be fixed. The stove is a joke. the guy missed the opening and hit your cabinet base?? sorry, but that's just poor, lazy work. he's bad at math. you can clearly see it's over about an inch to the right. you need to talk to the boss of these installers, and get them out there. the adhesive stuff, with all the info out there, i'm surprised these installers aren't on top of it and using the correct adhesive. this comes from fabrication. did they cut it on site or in their shop? I agree, it's not the best match up but, this backsplash is good.

You want more than just shine. You want to be able to stand back and bounce low-level light off the top. You shouldn't see any waves or dips in the top where they fixed the crack. If you do, they have to grind a larger swath and feather it in.

Just reiterating that those are natural fissures in your stone. Your stone is beautiful, and natural fissures are part of the beauty of how Mother Nature made it. But those fissures may be stressed by not having enough support. Just like if you had a faint hairline crack in a dinner plate, and then put a big steak on it, then perched the dish on the edge of the counter.