This is a loaded question.

Much harder, yes

Can you do it, prob not as good as a fabricator that will do it as their profession. Will you be happy with the results? That is up to your ability to work with the material you choose. Softer varieties are much easier to fabricate. Straight cuts are much easier to fabricate, but what about the round corners on your under mount sink? They are not square. . . Straight cuts look really bad from a fabricators viewpoint. For me 2 seams at the sink is a job done wrong. You have to weigh out what is acceptable to you.

With the harder varieties you will have to purchase much more equipment to do the job right. Can you do it for less?? maybe, but is it worth it, I can't answer that. I just installed a screen door that took me like 3 hours to install, was it worth it to pay the guy to install it for 100.00 dollars more, yep. Did I do it? Nope. Did I wish I did?? Yep.

With the harder varieties I cut everything with diamond equipment. Most people dont have this equipment. Softer varieties are much easier to work with. Harder varieties are like granite. Hard, hard, hard. Even softer varieties are best done in diamond but finished off a certain way. It took me years to figure out how to make soapstone look its best.

Can you do it in one try???

IÂll take a bold stand and say you can not. IÂll even give you a referral to say that they wanted to DIY and didnÂt. IÂll give you more than one.

IÂll let you choose which is best. If you have worked with stone before, you may be able to make it look nice, if not, IÂd go with the softer stone. Or just give me a call.

I also sell to DIYÂers. I give them as much info as I can. Ask around. I would bet by the end of the job they still wish I would have done it. I can give them all the knowledge, but canÂt give them years of experience. The last job I did a guy watched me fabricate part of a kitchen to see if he wanted to DIY. Did he do it himself, NO.

Remember this - If you do it yourself
and you DON'T do slab work for a living...

It's going to look like you did it yourself.

Not trying to discourage you, but this is NOT as
easy as you think it is....

If I were you, I'd hire a pro - the money will be
well spent - especially when the day comes to sell
your home. THAT's when having a pro installation will
fetch you more $$$ that one that shows like a DIY job

just my .02 cents worth, but it's true

kevin

Kevin M. Padden MIA SFA
Fabricator, Trainer & Consultant to the Natural Stone Industry
www.azschoolofrock.com

Umm...ok.

Well, we DIY'ed our soapstone (Light Vein Venata, so not a super hard variety), don't regret it at all and would do it again next time. We are very happy with how it came out (INCLUDING our D-shaped undermount sink) and don't feel it looks amateur at all. I'm sure a fabricator would find things to nitpick but overall it looks great and everyone who has seen it was VERY impressed/surprised we DIY'd it.

We used a $60 wet saw with a diamond blade for the straight cuts and a carbide straight cut router bit for the sink cut out (we went through 2 bits which was not a surprise).

I'm sorry that I can't comment on how much harder the Brazilian Black will be, but just wanted to comment that, for us anyway, DIY WAS a satisfactory and highly feasible option.

It's fine to say 'you won't regret hiring a pro' etc etc but for us that was simply not financially feasible. DIYing allowed us to have beautiful stone countertops we would not otherwise have been able to dream of affording.

Joshua: Thanks so much for your candor -- I've learned a great deal from your other responses on this forum and respect your opinion tremendously. I will step away from the Brazilian Black and start appreciating the subtler charms of the Santa Rita . . .

We're pretty set on the do-it-yourself route; partly for budgetary reasons, but also because we get a great deal of satisfaction from doing our own work on our house and landscape, and living with the results of our efforts. Our house is a 100 year old fixer-upper -- nothing too special about it other than its age (we're in the Pacific Northwest, so it's old for these parts!) -- but we love it and the neighborhood we're in, and want to make it the best home for us that we can. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is kind of a labor of love, and while we want to do the best job we possibly can, we're prepared to live with a certain amount of quirkiness resulting from our inexperience.

My husband's quite the handy guy and he has done some tile work, although he hasn't to my knowledge done anything with stone other than laying our flagstone patio. We are willing to make a reasonable investment in some equipment -- in your view, what would be the "essential" tools for a non-professional to do a good job, assuming we go with the softer stone?

Thanks again for your help!

vizslalover: Thanks for your response; I believe I've seen the pictures of your countertops and they look beautiful. Glad to hear you had a positive experience.

Any DIY tips/tricks/insights you can share?

vislalover, the question was asked about the harder varieties of soapstone, your light veining venata can be fabricated with some wood tools as Brazilian black cannot. As you know you only have experience with the stone you chose not the spectrum of all soapstones. I do encourage people in their diy endeavors, but do let people know where the line is. I even will let people watch me fab up some stone. They typically will choose for me to fab it up. But if not I will help out where I can. I also have seen some DIYers do ok work, as well as some really bad work. Sorry to say its more often the later. I guess I could say Ive seen some shabby soapstone work by some of us in the industry as well. I just went out 2 weeks ago to finish and fix someones mess.

As for Kevin, he's one of the few that promote themselves on this forum.

Flora poste, I do understand where your at, I think youll make the right decisions according to you and your DHs abilities. The investment should not be that large with the softer varieties. Do some searches (internet) for fabricating soapstone and you should find some good info for you to apply to your situation. If you have questions let me know.

Our soapstone is "hard" similar to the Brazilian black. Our fabricator said it was harder to cut than granite. Now he may have meant it was more difficult rather than actually harder. So for what its worth.....

florida joshua,
I know people don't promote themselves on this awesome forum but I'm in South Florida and planning a kitchen remodel by the summer. I would love to find a stone fabricator who I felt comfortable with. I admire your candor and helpful attitude. Are you within my vicinity (Broward County) or could you recommend someone who is?
Thanks,
Elyse

remodelfla, we do travel over to Broward County often. shoot me a email so we can exchange info. You can do this on my page. I would rather not hijack this thread. . .lol. . . You live where there are waves. . . The beach is much more fun with waves. If you want anything other than soapstone, I can give you some great granite fabrication names as well.

Flora Poste,
The experts here are trying to politely say stonework in general is not DIY.
Soapstone can be done as it is very soft compared to granite. You sand it with sand paper in 2 or 3 stages dry.
Granite, whether it is "soft" or not is 7 wet stages. The harder stones IMHO are actually easier to polish , they just take a little longer. The wet polishing process is a talent that takes many many many hours to perfect (lots of hours). Yes you can Buy the tools, grinders and blades, (only some of which is available at a BOX store)and then you will need the polishing pads of which a very cheap set of 7 will cost between $240 and $360. There are sets that cost upwards of $100.

Now if you have been considering prefab, pre polished then I have just gone down a rabbit trail. You did not say.

I could continue but won't. If you are still set on DIY, I would reommend the soapstone if you are handy.

Blessings

All the comments here are regarding cutting the stone, which I am assuming was the original question. We are getting the stone precut by Texeira. They have a good deal, where they charge you a little more per square foot, but you don't have to buy the slab then, so you don't pay for scrap pieces. They also cut the sink for an additional $350 and deliver for an additional $100. Still, much cheaper than getting it installed according to their installation prices.

So, our job would be to make the template, carry the slabs up two stairs and install, do final sanding etc. (have to check the exact details).

Do the pros think this is still not a DIY job? What about the DIY'ers? We are not super handy (although this kitchen was a very good learning experience), but we will have two guys at hand who are super handy, but are not stone people.

Also, should we have shopped for other installers prices? It was hard enough to find the soapstone and none of the granite people even knew about soapstone that much (one kept saying the soap under the soap dispenser will make ring marks) that we didn't really look for soapstone installers. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Any suggestions? Texeira's price for installation was $45 per square foot if I remember correctly.

Pinar

pinear,

yours is a soapstone DIY that works, go for it.

I am a DIY person all the way, I strongly reccommend it for anybody that is handy.

I would not say that about granite, unless it is prefab, with the edges polished. The cutting is not the hard part. It is the polisheing that requires a lot more talent and practice.

Thanks so much for the encouragement.

Btw, because so many people who didn't know soapstone and they were warning us against it, I did a little experiment (I am a bench scientist). I put drop samples of very strong acid, very strong base, strong organics and high salt on a piece of soapstone. None of it penetrated the stone at all. The drops stayed on the surface and took forever to dry (not the organic, that was volatile). Only the high salt solution left a ring of, well, salt, but that came of when I rubbed it with my wet finger.

I know this is probably not the right thread for it, but oh well.

Original poster here -- great information here; thanks to all who responded.

vrjames, to clarify, I was never considering granite as DIY project, or at all. I was interested in one of the harder soapstones, Brazilian Black, but now know that's likely biting off more that we could comfortably chew. We'll probably opt for the softer Santa Rita instead, which I'm sure will be just fine. Husband is quite handy, very meticulous, and we'll be sure to buy some extra just in case.

fl joshua- I appreciate all the soapstone info and expertise you have and freely share on this board. I also understand that the OP's question was about Brazilian Black which is much harder than my LVV (which is why I specifically addressed that in my post).

However, the 2 responses she had when I saw the thread both came away with (IMO) a very negative portrayal of ANY DIY stonework. I simply wanted to provide a different perspective lest she be totally scared out of DIYing her stone at all since we were happy with both the process and results (whereas you said all DIYers you've encountered regret it and/or the work is poor).

Pinar-I'm not sure how much DIY is really left in the situation you describe? It sounds like it's mostly the grunt work of physically installing the stone on the cabinets (make sure you have enough strong help for this part)? We also purchased our stone from M.Tex in SF but we went with the DIY slabs that are precut to 26" deep. Of course, we wanted less overhang so we had to trim all of our slabs but at least the slabs themselves were of a weight we could manage to move around this way.

flora-Some of the things I mentioned in my first post and making sure you have plenty of help moving large pieces are the big tips I have. Also double and triple check your template-you don't want to make a very expensive mistake.

We found it to be worth our while to buy silicon-carbide sandpaper from Braxton Bragg. It's intended for stone working and will work better/last longer than the Home Depot stuff.

We're pretty handy and tool savvy (our kitchen remodel, including wall removal, was completely DIY except for part of the plumbing and the drywall mudding & taping-because we're both terrible at it).

At the risk of being scrutinized for poor DIY work, here's a couple of photos of our DIY stone (only shiny because the oil hadn't been rubbed out yet):

Love the photos!! That is so gorgeous! Thanks for sharing. We are considering the possibility of DIY soapstone too. I'll be watching for and reading any and all posts that discuss soapstone, especially ones about DIY. Hope this discussion continues.

humble apologies, I saw Brazil Black and connected to the granite we sell.

Sorry, if it is a true soapstone , I say go for it. measure twice cut once.

Blessings

The original post asked about Brazilian Black , and I would and do discurage people from DIYing this stone. Here is the quote copied and pasted:

"My question is -- just how much more difficult will it be to work with this stone compared to one of the softer ones? Our countertops should be fairly simple, mostly straight cuts and one rectangular cutout for a drop-in cooktop. The sink will be an apron front undermount. "

I've helped alot of people with their diy jobs, and will contiue to do so. I will as always tell diy'ers to stick with the softer varieties.

I don't know if vizslalover was talking about me specifically when she said (copy and pasted)"whereas you said all DIYers you've encountered regret it and/or the work is poor", but I did not say that, and I would not want to be misquoted. I don't beleive Kevin, who also has been a big help on this forum about granite questions, said this either.

There are many diy'ers on this site that have done this to hopefully more will chime in.

My apologies then but when your initial post included the following lines:
"Ill take a bold stand and say you can not. Ill even give you a referral to say that they wanted to DIY and didnt. Ill give you more than one."
and
"I also sell to DIYers. I give them as much info as I can. Ask around. I would bet by the end of the job they still wish I would have done it. I can give them all the knowledge, but cant give them years of experience. The last job I did a guy watched me fabricate part of a kitchen to see if he wanted to DIY. Did he do it himself, NO."

It wasn't clear to me that you were ONLY referring to Brazilian Black. Although you specified you were talking about BB in other areas of the post these sections I read as general comments about DIY. The overall tone gave me the impression that while you were willing to help out DIY'ers, which is great, you thought that most DIY'ers regretted doing it themselves. The other post DID pretty much say DIY work was subpar "Remember this - If you do it yourself
and you DON'T do slab work for a living...
It's going to look like you did it yourself." and "THAT's when having a pro installation will
fetch you more $$$ that one that shows like a DIY job"

I'm sorry that I misinterpreted your post, but stand by my desire to present a more positive outcome from DIYing soapstone. It's possible I'm the only one who misread your post but it's also possible I'm not. And I also stand by that the other post was very down on DIYing as well.

I'm not attacking you or AZ Stone. You both provide lots of great and helpful information on this site which is greatly appreciated. I simply wished to provide a different take.

Sorry, forgot one other thing. I DO understand that I am not a soapstone expert but tried to be clear that I didn't know anything about how hard the specific stone she was asking about was.

Again, I just felt like the 2 replies she had came across as being very down on DIY in general (my misinterpretation, sorry) and wanted to let her know that it was feasible, at least in our case, albeit with a different and softer stone. I thought your post was pretty clear that the Brazilian Black was very hard and not a good choice but I wanted to encourage her to not give up on DIY altogether.

We DIY'd mariana soapstone in our last kitchen three years ago. My brother (who has lots of reno experience) helped me out, but he had never done soapstone before. I got heaps of advice and encouragement from this forum, and that is what convinced me to give it a shot. I was extremely happy with how it turned out - and we even tackled an undermount sink cutout!

{{gwi:1977894}}

A couple months ago I used the scraps left over from the kitchen to do the counter for the half bath in the house we moved into last year.

{{gwi:1990843}}

I love how tight you can get the seams with soapstone - I have four seams around my sink in the bathroom (using scraps). There is a horizontal seam here, but you can barely see it.

{{gwi:1990844}}

I'll just give a quick overview of what we did in the kitchen. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have...

We used thick posterboard to do the templates, then I taped those to the soapstone and outlined with pencil.

We used 2x4's clamped to the stone as a guide when cutting.

We used a wet tile saw with a diamond blade to do the cuts - it cut like butter (but let the saw walk itself for the most part, not much pushing required)

We used a jigsaw to roughcut the sink cutout - broke many blades. Would probably just use the tile saw if I were doing it again. Then we used a straight edge (carbide, I think) router bit for the final shaping. My brother did this mostly freehand following a blue-taped outline. There's probably a better way to do it - we got through it that way, and I was happy with how it looked.

For the seams - we laid all the pieces out in their final places on the cabinets. We taped under the seams to prevent the epoxy from dripping out the botton, and we taped along the top and front edges of the seams (so just a sliver of soapstone was showing). I worked the epoxy in with a small disposable putty knife and then scraped off the excess. For the front edges, I filled the seam with epoxy, scraped and then ran tape over the seam to prevent it from dripping out. Make sure you get plenty in at the front edge so you don't end up with bubbles there - they will be visible.

I had seen a suggestion to mix soapstone dust with the epoxy - this made the epoxy I used cloudy and much more visible. I got much better results using clear epoxy with no dust mixed in.

After the epoxy had cured, I sanded with (I think I am remembering this right) approx 160 grit, then approx 240 grit and then 600 grit. All were dry sands. I did a slight bevel on the edge with the sander using 600 grit. This takes a very light hand!

Applied mineral oil and enjoyed!

I'm in planning stages for the kitchen in this house, and I'm considering soapstone again, largely because I can do it all myself (well, I need help to lift them!). I love that sense of ownership and accomplishment (and DH liked the $$ saved).

Wow, that is all very useful information and I love how both the kitchens turned out. Excellent job and no, I can't see the seam in the bathroom.

I have a few questions, if you don't mind me asking.

- How fragile is the stone? SHould we be worried about breaking it carrying it around? ANy suggestions and tips? They will have to go up two flights of stairs.

- We will have an 84" slab, with a 33" sink cut-out right in the middle. The sink opening is 19" at its widest. So, my question is, do you think it is risky to have this in one piece in terms of breakage? What was your preferred method of transportation? I've seen this video where they tip the slabs on a dolly and carry it that way. Didn't seem like a bad idea. What do you think?

- Last, how hard is it to sand along the edge? Is there a trick to make the way you sand uniform along the edge or do you figure this out by eye?

Thanks a bunch.
Pinar

bump!

My opinions on your last set of questions -

- Unless you drop it, you probably aren't going to put any more stress on it carrying it than it will receive in shipment and transport to your house. Always carry it sideways - especially that long slab. The main issue is - WOW IT IS HEAVY! And getting enough people to carry it securely while negotiating steps will be challenging. Also, the edges can be sharp. I would consider wrapping it in a moving blanket and taping it up tight so you can get a more comfortable hold on it. My guess is you'll need at least four very strong people to move that big slab. Maybe even six. A dolly could work, if you can get through doors. We didn't have very far to go - I think we used a dolly to get the slabs off the truck and into the garage.

- Unless you have a fault line of some sort, I don't think you need to worry too much about breakage when you are cutting as long as you have it supported properly. We used 2x4's as supports underneath the soapstone - they ran the entire length of the cut, on both sides, and the piece that you are cutting away needs to be supported as well so it doesn't fall away at the end of the cut - it will take a chunk of the side you are keeping with it as it does. Really examine how you have it supported - lots and lots of 2x4's. We moved our sink piece on a sheet of plywood, but it wasn't 84" long - it was only 4' long.

- Sanding along the edge is pretty easy. I just did it freehand by sight. Very light hand. I just wanted the slightest of a bevel - really just enough to take the sharpness away (those edges are sharp when cut!). I just used a slow back and forth motion holding the palm sander at an angle. I only did that when I was all done with the 600 grit finishing of the top and edges. It was the last step.

Happy to help!

Thank you so much!
p.

I'd just like to briefly chime in on this thread
once more...

Flora poste - it sounds to me - after reading
all of the other posts on this thread - that
you are pretty set on the DIY route, so take
your time, practice, practice, practice, keep
asking lots of questions and keep your quality
standards high. Soapstone is (in my opinion)
the easiest material to learn on, so make sure
that you have enough "extra material" to make
your mistakes on while practicing, and then do
your best on the pieces that will go into your
home.

My comments in my original response were made as a
result of having seen litterally hundreds of really
bad looking applications that were done by people that
either had no experience doing slab applications,
couldn't afford what they wanted, or didn't want to
pay for what they wanted,
or....
contractors (real or pretend) or homeowners that "thought" they could
do a slab application,
then realized that once they had gotten too far
into the project that they were in way over their heads when it
came to the "I thought I could handle this" part of the work -
then they called a pro (like me) to bail them out,
and come in and "fix" what they did wrong. I'm NOT
saying that this is you, it sounds to me like you may
be in the less than 1% percentile of people that have
what it takes to do the project and make it look like
a pro did it... we'll see when you post your pics of the
finished work if it passes muster ;-)

Just so everybody knows.....

I've been doing slab work for a living since 1985,
and I see this kind of scenario all the time,
so my initial reaction
to your post was...
"OK, here's another one"

Thank you vrjames & florida joushua for clarrifying
your comments regarding mine -

Bottom line here is this:

1. no offense taken from any comments made refering to
my original post

2. thanks again to vrjames & flroida joshua - you guys
are cool

3. flora poste - you asked for comments from "the pros" -
I am one, and I spoke from my heart and 22 years of experience

4. flora poste - go forward slowly and carefully with your
project, and you should have a nice looking application -
don't forget to post pics - the others that have
been posted on this thread look pretty good for DIY'ers -
the one that was oiled (posted by vizslalover) VERY NICE !!! - did you do a tile back splash?

best regards

kevin

Kevin M. Padden MIA SFA
Fabricator, Trainer & Consultant to the Natural Stone Industry
www.azschoolofrock.com

And another piece of advice while I'm thinking of it - make sure you have your cabinet doors on when you are templating so you can judge the overhang of the soapstone better.

Just wanted to pop in again to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who contributed here, DIY'ers and pros alike. Great practical information; I'll be printing this out for future reference . . .

No offense taken by any of the skeptical responses from the pros -- you have no idea of our competence or lack thereof! And I am glad I asked the question -- we're now nearly 100% decided on using Black Santa Rita Venata soapstone (which I believe is one of the DIY-friendly types).

I will be back to post about our experience; just don't start holding your breath for it now -- our schedules have a tendency to sliiiide quite a bit to the right. We're still finishing up the hardwood floor installation we began in September (not all our fault, we had to wait a month for the stair nosing). But the new appliances are scheduled to arrive in January, and I sure hope they won't still be sitting wrapped up in the dining room when next Christmas rolls around, so we will be getting this started soon, I swear!

Happy Holidays to you all, and best wishes for the New Year . . .

Laura

Laura -

Best of luck to you on your project - one other thing that
I would mention is that since you are going to have a hard
wood floor - try not to do much wet work (touch up polishing,
etc) on the tops when they are already on your cabinets -
any water that gets on the floor and is allowed to stand
and/or soak in will do damage to the wood flooring...

so be careful... we always lay down sheet plastic, and then
cardboard so if a tool gets dropped or something, the wood will
hopefully have some higher level of protection...

Best Regards & Post your Pics when you are done - ok?

Happy Holidays - Schmolidays!!!
Here's wishing Everyone
a most politically incorrect -
Happy Chaanuka & Merry Christmas !!!

kevin

No worries -- we're doing tile in the kitchen, bathrooms and entry, and wood everywhere else. The husband had a bad experience with a leaky dishwasher and wood floors in the past, and is adamant about no wood in the kitchen -- except for the cabinetry, of course! Probably a good idea to avoid dropping heavy objects on the tile, though . . . more food for thought, maybe we should tile after??? Anyway, we've got a few months left to figure it all out.

Merry Christmas to you, too, Kevin!

Flora - as fellow DIY'ers, please post the results! We were told by many people we couldn't do many things DIY... hee hee... we did it.... it might have taken us 10 times longer but we have a lovely new kitchen, brand new windows (one of the easiest projects), a partially completed new entry deck, a new gutter (will do the rest in the spring), fixed retaining wall (did it myself), new plumbing, new electrical and the list goes on.... we were told by all the professionals we couldn't do it and had a horrible time buying the really good supply's as many shops only want to sell to "pros." A few times we tried to pay, but the "pros" seemed to know less than us, especially with moving the duct work in the kitchen.

Remember all the pro's had to learn at one point too!