I have finally finished my sister’s kitchen project. I started this project two months ago. I told her that projects are always long going with free labor. I spent one weekend demolishing and installing new subfloors and ceramic tile, a second weekend doing electrical, plumbing, assembling and install the Ikea Cabinets. She spent the last 6 weeks without running water in the kitchen – I am not so sure that she was too happy with me. This past weekend I managed to get a way from my office on Friday morning for the final step…. Cutting and installing soapstone counters.
I was able to purchase a slab and a half of soapstone from a local supplier. He let me cut it to size in his parking lot – which was great. He helped load it onto a trailer and I drove to Fond du Lac to (1.75 hours north) for installation. I was scared with the bouncing of the trailer that it would break, but it arrived without a mishap. I have included a few pictures of my experience.
A few things about the soapstone – it cut pretty well with a $20 HF diamond blade in the circular saw. Routing round-over’s and small profiles were a breeze. I thought that using a pattern cutting bit in my router and having the sink rough cut to allow the use of the template would be easier. That was a PIA for the first sink half. I was going to try and cut the sink in the house after we carried in the slab because if cut outside, I am sure that we would have broken the slab even carrying it vertical. This stuff is heavy! 25 lbs/sqft and awkward! After cutting this on Friday – there was no way I was going to do any additional cutting or sanding of this in the house than I had to. Also, I decided after moving the first piece into the house that I would find the center of the sink; make a perpendicular cut across the soapstone at this location; and then but the joints together in the house with epoxy. My last two houses have had granite and this is the way the professionals did it – so why not? I think that it worked OK and was a lot easier to handle.
The entire issue of cutting the sink was difficult. After butting the slabs back together and drawing the template of the outline on it, I pulled them apart and used a diamond HF blade in my 4.5” Makita angle grinder to rough the hole out. This took some time because of the inside curves. I figured that the router would be able to clean up the waste pretty quickly after getting it roughed with the grinder. This was not to be. I learned a lot on the first rough cutout and the second went much faster – 30minutes compare to an hour for the first. I slapped the template on the first rough cut side and started routing. First thing – no matter how hard you push on the router – 1/64” off in each pass at the most. It took me at least an hour to complete this side of the sink. On the other side I was a little smarter. I put a masonry grinding cup in the grinder and got to less than 1/8” all the way around the template – that took 15-min. Routing that side didn’t take another 15-min – but the router stopped midway through the process. I thought that I blew a breaker – nope the cap holding the brush on the PC 690 unscrewed and popped off into the grass. I actually found it and cursed for 15min trying to get back on. Started the sink at 11:00 – completed the process at 3:15. I should have never of talked her into an undermount sink!
Carried in the pieces and leveled them up with some shims, some PL construction adhesive and some silicone caulk. The large 3x5 piece for the peninsula was quite heavy and caused the cabinet to bow in the back a little. I lagged a 2x4 onto the pack wall through the cabinet and solved that problem. All that is left is the installation of the back splash and oiling the stone. After my sister has it oiled I will get some more pics!
Thanks for looking
1 First 5’x10’ slab with a few lines for lay out
2 First cuts required for all cuts
3 Cutting a piece of backsplash prior to cutting the 8-ft x 25.5” counter piece
4 Back at my sister’s house – laying out a cut for a small 2x2 counter and the remaining 3x2 cabinet
5 2x3 piece carried in and set in place – looks good so far!
....1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 - yup all there, whew!
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Originally Posted by "Gary Brewer"
