It's a good thing the manufacturers don't have me naming their products, because that's just what I'd call this stuff. I'm hoping fellow Gardenwebbers can help me identify and avoid it. I pulled the drawers, but no dragons to be found. It's apparently only a few years old according to the retired homeowners and it came with the home when they bought it, but it looks like its had the loving care a group of hard partying college boys.

Look just left of 12:00 in the flash part of the picture. Those spots are etches. I've been in the quartz business for over 15 years and this is the first time I've seen repeated etching that wasn't battery acid. And it's scratched all to heck. Maybe the old folks are fibbing and this place is party central? I haven't seen etches like this since the kids made Margaritas on momma's travertine a few months back.

Frat House Quartz laughed at the 6,000 grit from my Steve's Polishing Pro system and at the MB 20 granite polish I hit it with in my test section. Just before I was going to go medieval with some diamonds, I tried MB12 marble polish. The etches and scratches disappeared, but so did the factory finish. Think gloss matte. I went back to the 6,000 and the reflections of the bulbs in the lights started to reappear.

It took an hour and a half just to find the cure. I'm coming back to do the job. The cabinets and appliances have to be masked. One speck of MB12 spatter and they're etched too. My bill would probably make a nice down payment on new tops, this is a small kitchen, but I'm not going to wreck any backsplash tiles on the way out either.

This stuff is 2cm with a 2cm built up front edge. The laminations are beautiful, the deck seams not so much. If a suspect only comes in 3cm, we'll have to rule it out. I'm not saying this is Viatera Snow Storm, but it's the closest looking thing I can find. Like the emerald ash borer eating our Ash trees, I'm afraid this may be the first view of a non-Breton foreign invader.