I love flamed granite, I'm not familiar with 'acid' flamed [maybe the acid eats away some of rougher edges?]

As a matter of principle, I like rough, aged looking materials.

But I'm not planning to use it on my work surfaces. It might be just fine, but I have a rough formica bar top in my current house, and the texture just makes it noisey if you slide a glass or anything.

But if I were doing a granite shower, I'd definetly want flamed!

gail,

The process on a trademarked material of the Venezian granites is flamed and then acid washed. And yes the acid washing smoothes the rough edges of the flamed surface.

Also very popular is antiqued, suede, acid wash, or brushed finishes. Sometimes a combination of two processes are done for a unique look by a factory.

These processes though different and providing slightly different appearances are all considered the same in the industry.

Blessings

oruboris, it occurred to me that the unevenness, though nice to touch, might not be practical as a work space though the counter I'm thinking of using it on is not intended as a preparatory surface, just cleaning. The noise comment though is interesting....

vrjames, do you know if the acid-flaming, sueding, antiquing, etc. impacts the required care or is it all just some variation on honing?

I was extremely close to going with a leathered finish on my countertop but my contractor pointed out that it would be harder to clean and also, one of the main aspects of life in our kitchen is kids doing homework at the island and that would make a rough surface to write on. That nixed it for me. I do like the rustic rough look though, but since I am going to have a stone wall and stone floor I'll get that effect anyway, I guess.....

Yeah, southern, that's pretty much why I left that idea behind...especially when oruboris mentioned the noise factors of sliding items on the counter...I know that would grate on my nerves.