I would be suspect of a stone with a crack. My granite yard only buys grade 1 granite. There are different levels and there are "bad stones." That's at least what I have learned as I have been in many different distributors in the last few months. Good luck!

Thanks for having the courage to tell me what I didn't really want to hear, bobber4. I guess I knew in my heart I knew I shouldn't buy it. Well, at least I get to make more trips to other granite yards. ;-)

seaglass,
a crack in a slab does not make it a "lower grade". Bobber is not correct on this one.

If you do not buy these slabs because of a simple handling crack then that would be a mistake.

Blessings

vrjames... I'm not yet shopping my granite but would love to learn for future reference how a consumer can learn to determine if a crack is a handling crack or a problem with the slab. Is there some standards which would be obvious to know if a slab is "lower grade"? Are there really "grades" of granite outside of the fact if they are consider exotic? I'm assuming a granite is considered exotic if it's harder/more expensive to mine or rare and therefore more $$. Thanks for any info, I love learning these things.

Remodelfla,
I shall try to answer your question briefly, but this may be long.

Granite is "graded" for lack of a better term. And since there is no true regulation on the grading system then it becomes quite subjective. We only work with solid established companies with good reputations in the industry.

The grading is also relative to the country where the materials are being processed.

In general in Brazil where 50% of the stone for US consumption comes from, Italy gives us about 20% and India is 10 to 15%, they all try to grade using Premium, 2nds and commercial.

Premium is exactly what you can imagine, correct color, balance, and polish. A premium slab can have a crack from handling and still be premium. If it is say Black absolute from India, It should be deep black with small "grains" in it and not be dyed. Anything less, grey background, large spotty grains, or any cloudy spots makes it a 2nd quality.

If the Ubatuba from Brazil has occlusions (the large black spots, bigger than a mans fist) it is considered 2nd's. If there are cloudy bands in it as well, that will make it a 2nd quality. Large amounts of open fissures on the surface (there can be a few small fissures and still be premium) or severe miscoloration will make it commercial quality.

As for Exotics, these are a slightyly differnet animal. There is some varied swings in what is acceptable in a material and what is not. There is a material called Mongo Bordeau, it comes from the typhoon bordeau and sienna bordeau quarry. It is extremely rare to fing\d it without a substantial amount of surface fissuring. The number of soft minerals in it cause this and the material is not weak in general, just minor fissuring. We seek the best we can get and must accept sme of these "defects in this material. We would not accept this in the Gallo Beach though as it does not normaly gte fissureas at all. SO when we see it with this, the factory will offer a deep dsicount which we will decline. Sometimes Gallo Beach will come out with not quite the correct colors in it, and is "graded" as a standard. which we would consider buying.

Blue Pearl is sold in 4 different varieties. The BP GT Dark is the top of the line, then Blue Pearl silver and BP RB (Royal Blue) which are offered at a significant discount. So when you are shoppimg and one guy offers BP at say $65 installed and another is quoting $85, they might not be offering the same "grade" of blue pearl.

Another example is intentional crossnaming of material. A few years ago on this forum a gy adamantly insisted he had Typhoon Green installed for $45sf, I knew that was what I paid for that material, just the material. I found out later that the Indians named one of their cheap materials Typhoon Green to create this confusion with the True first named Brazilian exotic called Typhoon Green. There are several others. So when you are shopping , be sure you are talking about the same material.

I hope this helps. ...

Excellent post James. Thank you!

I would not turn down a slab because it was cracked. The granite yard had two slabs of delicatus that I was able to get very cheap because the slabs had sat on the yard for a while and some of the resin fill had aged and looked bad. One of the slabs had a crack running right down the middle of it too. Delicatus is a very fragile material that in slab form is prone to breaking (until they get it installed), and a lot of fabricators won't even deal with it because breakage during fabrication is pretty common. But they were able to work around most of the bad resin (and repaired the rest) and also worked around the crack. I ended up with a beautiful exotic countertop for less than most people pay for the cheapest granite around. Needless to say, I am thrilled!!

I second what Ccoombs1 said about VRJames' post...

EXCELLENT!!!

VR - Thanks for taking the time to elaborate!

Well Done!!

kevin

VRJames-Thanks for the education. I was dealing on the Blue Pearl Royal and the dealer was "discounting" from the dark blue pearl GT, so it looks like I may not have been getting such a good deal afterall. But I now understand the nuances of cracked stones. The information will be extremely helpful in my future treks.

Ccoombs1-I saw delicatus in the yard last week and loved it then, but yours---it's just gorgeous! I'm so glad you didn't pass on that stone!

And lastly, does anyone know how to add VRJames's information to the granite FAQ? It would be a great addition. Maybe Buehl knows?

Thanks one more time for all the insight and help.

Thanks....I am happy I didn't pass on it either. The slabs were fantastic....but the way they they templated it so that this large area of translucent smokey quartz is in such a visible place in the corner just made me so happy.

Just left a dealer, who had four grades of granite, 1,2,3 and 4.
I was told to buy above a 2 grade - the dealer said a number 1 meant it was "more available" and a 4 less, rather than a measure of quality
This doesn't sound right.
Help!