Good quality stone should not be rough to the touch. some stones will have an occasional area where it'll feel a little rough to your fingertips. many are pretty much as smooth as glass if properly polished and finished.

typhoon bordeaux is one of the stones that will have occasional rough areas.

competent fabricators will fill larger pits. Your eye can detect a surface irregularity of .001" with proper lighting so irregularities which can be seen but not felt should not be considered objectionable. Very small irregularities which can be felt with the fingertips but do not snag a cleaning rag or fingernail should also be considered acceptable.

if you have an area where an inclusion has popped out it can be repaired by a competent fabricator to the point where it will be difficult to tell a repair was done.

Thank you oldryder for your detailed and very helpful response.

Will the pits be filled with a clear material or do they try to match the stone?

Is the granite slab polished after the fabrication or is that done at the quarry?

pits are typically filled with a color matched epoxy as most "clear" epoxies have a yellow tinge when fully cured.

slabs are typically polished at the quarry or intermediate processing center. Normally the fabricator gets slabs which are polished on one side.

So if I touch the surface and it's has some rough patches, then I can expect the counter top to have a rough quality to it. Those patches will not get buffed out.

I think if the stone has rough patches, those are the areas you'd avoid when templating. Your finished counter should NOT be rough.

We've had Typhoon Bordeaux for 3 years. No problems, just a couple very minor chips around the sink. Basically bullet-proof and low maintenance. Never any rough spots and haven't sealed it since it was installed. It is very smooth (in spite of epoxy areas, inclusions, fissures which are part of the stone and are not rough) and I've never caught any cloths on it when cleaning.
I don't put extremely hot things on the counters, just in case. Really not a problem.

But, of course, just before I read your thread, I was rubbing at what I thought was dried food and a very small chip came out of one area. I'm not worried. I'll get it fixed.

If there is a large rough area (like the White Typhoon you saw), that area should be worked around and not included in your counters. If at all possible, you should see the template on your stone and approve it.

In answer to your original question, "how do you clean your rough granite?" ...
the answer is it shouldn't be rough in the first place.

HTH!

I think if the stone has rough patches, those are the areas you'd avoid when templating. Your finished counter should NOT be rough.

We've had Typhoon Bordeaux for 3 years. No problems, just a couple very minor chips around the sink. Basically bullet-proof and low maintenance. Never any rough spots and haven't sealed it since it was installed. It is very smooth (in spite of epoxy areas, inclusions, fissures which are part of the stone and are not rough) and I've never caught any cloths on it when cleaning.
I don't put extremely hot things on the counters, just in case. Really not a problem.

But, of course, just before I read your thread, I was rubbing at what I thought was dried food and a very small chip came out of one area. I'm not worried. I'll get it fixed.

If there is a large rough area (like the White Typhoon you saw), that area should be worked around and not included in your counters. If at all possible, you should see the template on your stone and approve it.

In answer to your original question, "how do you clean your rough granite?" ...
the answer is it shouldn't be rough in the first place.

HTH!

We are trying to use just one piece of stone so unfortunately we are not going to have the luxury of being able to eliminate the rough areas. I guess that means we should try to find something that is totally smooth from the get-go. We are currently looking at a Lite Typhoon Bordeaux that is leathered. It's very smooth - in fact it feels great. I just have to get used to the notion of having a leathered countertop.

We have had Typhoon Bordeaux for 3 years. We're continually rough on it and because of the coloring it doesn't always get cleaned. (It looks clean but you have to run you hand over it to confirm it!) It's been bulletproof and no resealing to date. Smooth as glass. We had 2 pin hole pits over the years and epoxy sealed it. Can't find the spot. I just noticed a larger chip from the underside of the island this past week. I have the granite installer here on Sat for a separate job and he will look at it. If you're not loving the leathered look I would keep looking. You can live with plywood for a few months. It took me 8 months to find my granite. Good luck

Different suppliers do different things to stones at the import/wholesale stage. My kitchen granite has very large scale crystals and one lovely plagioclase phenocryst that is nearly a foot long. This is a slab that would be rough to the touch but the supplier filled/coated it with a resin after or during the polishing. You can see drips of the resin along the edges of the unfinished slab if this has been done. If it didn't have this coating it would certainly have rough areas. all of the large-scale granites I saw in Dallas had this resin if they were polished.
If your granite has large crystals it should probably be filled or leathered. (dreamed of leathered, couldn't find it in my city at a price normal humans could consider -next life I will be a rock star or married to one)
Crystals break off along certain planes and will "pluck" out of their matrix. Just ask me about spending months of grad school polishing mineral sections.....not fun at all.