i do not do Berwyn that often. But this is what i have

By the sink there is a small seam on this Calacatta Quartzite.

That doesn't look too bad at all! Thanks, Catt

obviously this is a very close up of the seam. When you stand back from it (as you would if you were cooking) its hardly noticeable.

My first comment was about Berwyn (what I am angsting over), but that 2nd one doesn't look too bad, either, you did a really good job matching the veins. It's a good spot that could be covered up with appliances and stuff to further obscure the seam. Mine will be in an island where the best I can do is cover up part of it with placemats.

Whoa an island? how large is your island? It must be larger than the slabs.

And yes, the first picture of Berwyn is a close up- it does not look like that from normal eye distance.

It's an L shaped 100" on each of the long sides of the "L". Neither side is longer than the slab but the full L cannot be cut out of the slab =\

It doesn't get any better than Catt's Berwin seam^.

White Mist Granite

• Hello, I would also like some opinions on my recent install. After much research I decided to go with MSI Calacatta Botanica. The quartz is a beautiful white with soft grey veining. It was installed today and I am not sure what to think of the seam. I was told that the veins would match up. I asked to see it before it was cut but was told it wasn't necessary. The veins don't match up and the seam is quite noticeable, although the contractor installing my cabinets thought it was a very tight seam. The owner of the fabrication company got back to me right away and said he cut them himself and there was no way to get a better match. Please lmk what you think, hoping I just had unrealistic expectations. Btw, the wall is curved and the seam is on the bend.

And that whole area

The island and rest of the job looks

@hufflehug, it's definitely noticable up close, but all seams are. How do you feel about it "at a glance" at a normal distance when you are not looking for it? The not-zoomed-in photos look fine to me, but photos are not the real thing, and a lot of it comes down to what you notice and how you feel about your kitchen.

The comment about "this was the best we could do": depending on how much of the slab they used, that may very well be the case. We went to the stone yard to move around our templates on our 2.5 slabs, and there was only so much that we could choose based on leeway in any direction. The main decisions we made were the orientation and which slab got which template piece, which influenced our seams. Ours quartz is noisier instead of veiny so it was less pattern matching and more "which area looks equally busy / resolution of noisy pattern vs. which area looks a bit more spread out?"

I was anxious about my quartz selection (cambria berwyn) and how the seam would end up, but am so happy with how my island turned out. Can you spot the seam (don't let the unfinished floor distract you)?

I only really notice it when staring at it head on:

That's a great job done by the fabricator!

We actually went to the stoneyard to move around the templates on our 2 slabs and orient them where we thought the pattern would work best for seams (but not in an exact way), but yes, very happy with their work.

The fabricator recut the sink run by hand with no seam. I lost the rest of my slab but he credited me.$350. I have other issues with my counters and would never recommend my fabricator to anyone. I will take this as a lesson learned for future projects.

I asked repeatedly to come to the yard before they cut mine but they kept saying it wasn't necessary....apparently it was! Again, lesson learned.

@sara...beautiful

@Sara, this is what every fabricator should do if they can not provide digital layouts on the slabs. I have worked for over 15 years with natural stone and quartz and would never let a fabricator 'pick the seam' location as they will layout the tops to minimize waste...

Some nice looking seams on here! Found this thread because we had our Andromeda White granite installed this week, and this seam is bugging me. It’s to the right of the stove and I think looks especially silly because it’s such a small piece. Hubby assures me that it’s not that noticeable since there’s so much going on all over with the pattern of the stone. I know they had to make this cut to make it work because some of our other pieces (like the island) were very big with no seams (and look great), but just wondering how noticeable this seam is at a glance to others...

I think your seam looks fine, henderson!

Had these installed today. Happy with the seam. Was a little sad that the mitered edge veins Don’t match but I also didn’t think to mention it because I was so obsessed with looking at the seam.

View of Mitered side . Maybe my eye will accustom to it after a while?

Sorry Alicia, that's as good as it gets. First rate work.

Thank Joseph! That’s what I was hoping to hear. You made my day. I was wondering why the veins didn’t match on that one side on the edge but did on other edges.... but perhaps it has to do with the details of how it is cut. Either way, I do like the seam a lot.

I think it turned out great, Alicia!

Alicia, that's a fabulous job.

My new quartz worktop. There is a colour difference thought they would match.

And what about the joint is that the best it could be

We will have a 13.5' x 5.5' island with a cooktop in it (with waterfall on one side of the 5.5' width). So we will definitely have a seam. I just did my first shopping trip to look at slabs and I wanted to know if a slab with least amount of movement or light veining or no veining is better that a slab with a lot of pattern for a "SEAMLESS" look. I understand that you will see the seam almost always, but which slab (patterned or no pattern) will be more likely to have the seam noticeable?

Even with wood countertop you will see seams correct? I'm open to countertops that might be better for seams than others. I only looked at "jumbo" quartz slabs from MSI (they had only 3 which came in jumbo sizes) and the rest that I saw were quartz like the Taj Mahal.

Our build is a modern kitchen.

Thanks

Our counter seams turned out ok due to some combination of luck and going to the stone yard to manually place our counter templates on the actual slabs they'd be cut from. Plus the installers were probably good. But if I were to do it again, I'd have picked a different one. Instead of a veiny quartz, I'd have picked more of a speckled pattern.

I recommend putting the seam at the cooktop if you can. That makes a smaller seam area, less area for it to look bad or be noticeable.

@paddykk

There are jumbo slabs available from most fabricators of manufactured slabs such as Cambria, Silestone, Ceasarstone, ETC.... although most are limited to 10' in lenght. That said, I worked with natural stone as well as manufactured for over 15 years before starting to work with concrete. No matter how good the fabricator is with 'busy' materials (veining, patterns...) a seem will always be visible at least to you because you KNOW where it is and your eye automatically will look for it. So, the trick is to make it a design feature instead.... use a transition material in between or just change colors/materials completely.

Seams in semi transparent engineered quartz(most marble looking quartz for example) will look different than seams in solid pigmentation engineered quartz(solid color and floral patterned quartz for example). Semi transparent quartz will cast a shadow on itself once glued together creating a grayish line no matter what color you make the resin. Think of it like trying to hide the line created when putting two mirrors together. You can’t because you are actually looking into them, any break in the material cast a shadow creating a dark line. Solid pigment materials hide much easier. I am a stone crafter, including engineered quartz, for almost 25 years.

Living Design:

You aren't tinting your adhesives heavily enough. If you tint properly, or use the Integra recommended adhesives, there will be no gray line, no matter the color of engineered stone.

Our fabricator recommended Quartzite.. O my first shopping trip what caught my eye were the Taj Mahal, Perla Venta, Mustang, Madreperla.

Nice to see some pics with this Integra adhesive Joseph. I prefer natural quartzite but for many customers engineered quartz surface is still going to the the rage.

LG Muse. This was installed a week ago, and I do wish the seam was a little less noticeable. The actual adhesive in the seam looks like a perfect match with the stone background, but the overall seam looks darker for some reason.

And the seam appears darker at night...

My fabricator put this seam in and I called him on it, he insists it is not a mistake. I told him I want a redo so that the colors match and the veins converge naturally. He said he thinks he can do from stone he has leftover. He brought this piece and it does match perfectly, I still have to ok the other piece that he will need to replace the other side of the counter. My question is, will it look weird to have seams so close together? My counter would require 2 seams no matter what

Here is the size of the replacement on one side, the other side will be completely replaced

" My question is, will it look weird to have seams so close together?"

No. It will be fine. Apparently you don't have much choice anyway.

Thank you. Our other choice is to rip it out and start over, hoping the seams are fine.

I'm not an expert and I would consider myself as your regular homeowner but I'd rather buy a new slab to replace that seam. It's hardly visible but still does not fit well for the slabs. The granite looks great and it would be perfect for an all-white kitchen theme, the seams need to be improved but overall the finished product looks fine to me. I've found some great ideas so far when it comes to choosing the slabs and how to properly apply the seams in this site https://www.caesarstone.ca/blog/countertop-materials-choosing-the-right-one-for-you/. I believe that this might help you out a bit.

"There is no patching engineered stone. None. This isn't Corian."

I was wrong. When I was forced to patch or buy a new large island or possibly a new kitchen, I made an acceptable repair. I got lucky; this was a forgiving color/particulate/movement. Had this been a solid white, I would have been toast:

Is this seam acceptable? it’s a quartz called “super white” from georgian stone in the Norcross GA. pretty much identical to arctic white from MSI. wasn’t expecting such a dark seam, and thought we could actualy avoid seams bc we used super jumbo slabs 75x135. but we have a seam here and at the stove. Also dont like the edge patchwork at the seam. looks sloppy to me. what do you guys think?

Seam doesn't look too wide, could of used more white however. Semi transparent materials create dark shadow on itself, it helps to make glue for seam even whiter than material to hide dark shadow, then the top coat of seam can be worked to match exact color better, in my opinion. That seam on sink edge could probably be blended in to look better, hard to tell if they had a chip on bottom that they filled while glueing seam. Not all installers are fabricators. Your L-shaped area is larger than the slab, so either one seam near the 90degree turn or two seams in each of your cutouts, depending on fabricator.

Astrid:

Installers have no business mixing adhesive colors on site, especially on the notoriously difficult whites. Getting the pigment/adhesive/catalyst ratio right needs to be done under factory conditions which is why you use factory recommended adhesives. Too much pigment, too bright a color. Too little, gray translucence. Too much catalyst, seam yellows in time. Men are 16 times more color blind than women.

The chip at the seam can be fixed by ripping off the edge, reprofiling, and polishing.

I am a fabricator. Joe is exactly right. We went to the factory recommended color matched adhesive years ago due to color matching issues. It's actually EASIER for the installers to use the color matched adhesives so I don't know why anyone would still be color matching on site.

Wow...thanks guys this is really insightful. I baulked, so they tried repairing by, I think, shaving the grey down and filling with white as well as sanding down the side. I've attached pics of the result and the product they used to fill. Still not satisfied...better but still quite spotty and inconsistent. Is there anything else that can be done about it at this point? Are there professionals that can carve out the top layer of the seam and replace with color matched adhesive?

That is a good clear resin, one of a few i use myself, but what matters is making it a good color before its glued together. Almost looks like they didn't add any dye on initial glue. They'd be better off using precolored glue since they don't seem to have it down. Maybe do practice run on scrap pieces first. Unfortunately its difficult to hide the darker color that is underneath with a thin skim coat on top of it.

It looks contaminated to me.