[Shane Barker]

Hello all,

I have not been able to post or even read much lately because we are just hammered with work…but I am not complaining at all, anything is better than no work.

We just finished a quartz job and had another company do the fab and install and I did the templates. Every thing went in really well and fit like a glove. This job had a huge island 78×112 with the seam running down the length and a few days later after the customer inspected the job he noticed the seam was fractured and sent a picture showing a separation. We scheduled a time for me and the company that did the install to take a look at it and when I got there the seam looked fine. The customer was a bit confused because he had a copy of the picture there that clearly showed the seam fractured but when I was there it was fine. Could it be from expansion and contraction? I would not have believed it was as he said if he did not have the picture to prove it.

Well the customer said he would be fine as long as if it ever opened up again we would fix it. But then he showed us another problem, on each side of the 112” long seam it was smudged for about a ½” on each side almost like a glue smear. The installers tried to get it off but never could so they sent another guy out the next day and he said it was a flaw in the material and the island would need to be remade. I just have a really hard time believing that, I saw the top when they brought it in and did not see the smudges so I think it is glue residue or something. The company that did the work will pick up the tab to re-due the top but I just wonder if there is a way to fix it. Any ideas what may have caused this to happen?

Shane

[Kerry Parker]

Shane, more than a few of us were worrying about ya, guy. Glad you were just busy, thought you might have frozen up there.

For what little I know, I shouldn’t be asking this, but I’ve heard about stress when cutting the e-stone (bannana cuts) and wondered if perhaps this was the culprit not expansion or contraction. In the cabinet business, we call it casehardening, when a board pinches a 5 hp saw motor till it stops. Could this be the case, delayed stress that equalized itself? Did anyone check for flatness? Sometimes in a raised panel blank, stress in the lumber shows up as a warped panel not a split glue seam.

[Shane Barker]

Thanks Al,

I saw the seam when they dry fit it and it looked ok, they used a level and made sure they shimmed it up nice and flat. The picture the customer had showed the seam separated but when I got there it looked great.

Shane

[Joe Corlett]

Shane:

Good to have you back.

I’m betting the “smear” is really an abrasion from when these guys tried to remove the glue. How consistent is it?

If it was some sort of heat from the cutter it would probably be fairly consistent, an abrasion would not.

You need to call Fred Hueston at 828-255-4510, he is the man. fhueston@aol.com

Good Luck,

Joe

[Shane Barker]

Thanks Joe,

The guys did try to buff out the smear but only in one area and it did not change much if any. When I first saw it I really thought they could have got it right off with a razor blade and some alcohol but it didn’t phase it. One of the installers said the guy that put it in likes to go over the seam with steel wool when he is done and he thought that could have been the problem.

Shane

[Joe Corlett]

Shane:

Ultra-fine steel wool will buff scratches out of the polymer of engineered stone if combined with acetone at the time. Fred taught me that.

I’m sure that 1/2″ line is an abrasion now.

Joe

[Andy Graves]

Shane,

It will need to be remade. We made a conference table about 6 months ago and had the same problem. It is the edge of the sheet of matereial. You basically can’t use the edge of quartz material or it will have that faint haze that looks like the material is not polished.

The material was Caesarstone and the manufacturere technicians tried to repair in the field with no luck at all.

[Shane Barker]

This was Viatera but it sounds like you might be right. I did not see it at first but when you get it in the light and the glare hits it just right it shows up. Is this a common problem with Quartz?

Shane

[Andy Graves]

I’m no quartz expert, but that is what the Caesarstone people told me and they paid for the replacement. They didn’t pretend that the problem existed. Caesarstone is a real good company and very straight forward.

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