Moving granite worktop
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alex robinson
Established Member
The worktops themselves were very lightly secured with silicone (and a lot of gravity). Just needed good coordination between lifters. The splashbacks needed a bit more preparation to make sure they could be prised off without damage.Well done in getting them off!
Agent_zed
Established Member
I cut granite tops for my bathroom vanity top.
Think it is about 1inch thick and the widest piece must be about 50cm. I used a 4.5inch angle grinder and a diamond blade. Cut pretty well and after a bit of polishing up most people wouldn't notice the edge was any different to the other professionally cut edge.
Keeping the blade upright is the hardest part, although with a diamond blade you can grind a bit of with the side if you are careful.
also I cut from the top if i remember correctly
pe2dave
Established Member
Question rather than solution, will a tile cutter (hand held rather than fixed) suffice to cut granite? If so, easy to hire?
alex robinson
Established Member
I don't know. One with a wet diamond blade would seem ideal. None of the hire shops I can find seem to have one. The choice is always one of the little table saws, or one of the manual snapping ones.
pe2dave
Established Member
Which leaves the (dry?) diamond blade in an angle grinder?
Only 'aid' I can think of is a 4x2 clamped, then run the grinder along that? How to get water to it (if needed), or at least rest every minute or two?
Or pay? Makita tile cutter
alex robinson
Established Member
Which is why I was intrigued by this:
Mains powered, water cooled less than £100. However a brand I had never heard of, and seemingly the only tool attempting to fill that niche. I am always a bit wary of buying random stuff that sounds a bit too good to be true off the internet! Only Amazon reviews to go on and some lethal / useless junk can get 5* on those...
pe2dave
Established Member
alex robinson
Established Member
So, a bit of an update, in case anyone who helped with advice earlier or might be wanting to try such a project in future is interested.
Overall the project worked and where there was a very shabby kitchen with rotten laminate worktop and a strange patio door inside the house, there is now a kitchen and utility room, with nice granite worktops.
Overall the project worked and where there was a very shabby kitchen with rotten laminate worktop and a strange patio door inside the house, there is now a kitchen and utility room, with nice granite worktops.
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alex robinson
Established Member
Things I have learned:
1) Granite is heavy, but not too bad to move.
Fortunately this country doesn't go in for the American trend of gluing worktops down. Upstands took some care to remove without snapping (we didn't end up breaking any pieces of granite in the whole procedure). Saws and multitools didn't do much for cutting the silicone, but wallpaper scrapers and blades worked ok, combined with a mini prybar. Too late I discovered what I should have bought - a flexible knife used by potters for removing pots from the wheel.
There is no substitute for brute strength. A team of people with clear instructions and carrying is better than wheels or suction cups.
2) Granite is dead easy to cut.
The little GMC wet saw was amazing. Cut 30mm stone with ease. Don't try and use a metal straight edge as a guide - grit or debris can get underneath and the vibrations can cause big scratches that are difficult to remove (more on this later!). Use a paint marker pen and freehand cut. Any minor wobbles can be cleaned up later with polishing pads.
3) Granite polishing is simple, but boring and incredibly messy.
We had to make multiple cuts and most of them needed polishing. ATS diamond tools were amazing, really helpful advice and great products. A set of their economy polishing pads did the whole lot. There seemed to be a bit of a knack to using them. They need to be wet, but seemed to work best just on the balance between wet and drying out. Too much water and it was hard to keep track of what was happening. It was mostly like normal sanding, but the consequences of missing a scratch at an early grit feels much more frustrating! We used a cheap rotary polisher and a very gentle dribble of water.
It is hard to match the finish on a top surface exactly, especially if removing long straight scratches. Even with a 3000 grit pad followed by polishing compound, it looks slightly different from the factory finish. This is probably due to the colour enhancer they put on worktops in the finishing process. MB granite polish was good, but not magic.
We were enjoying the process so much we bought another set of worktops off eBay for £50 to do the utility and an extra run of wall cabinets turned into floor cabinets. Even if the name of the stone is identical, you will see the difference if you look closely. I tried various stonemasons though and their matches were no closer.
Overall the total cost of the saw, polisher, backing pads, diamond pads and diamond holesaw was about £200.
4) Drilling big holes for taps or internal corners is easy
Diamond hole saw from Screwfix did a great job. You need to be careful when starting, but with a bit of patience it was great
5) Polishing internal corners and plunge cuts is hard
We got ambitious and wanted to make a cut out for a Belfast sink for the utility. Polishing a slightly shoddy plunge cut flat was tedious. Polishing the internal corners, even with a flexible backer pad was really tedious! This was probably the only bit that was really difficult, and should probably have practiced first. We got away with it and it ended up looking great, but it could have been a disaster.
We also had to enlarge the sink hole to put a bigger sink in the kitchen bit. We did this in-situ as we didn't want to weaken it too much. Cut outs done by professionals have strengthening bars epoxied either side to prevent it snapping and we were going beyond this. Cutting in situ makes a mess!
6) Granite epoxy sets really fast!
Nothing like pouring epoxy. Make sure everything is set up perfectly in advance and move fast! We found masking tape either side of the seam and smoothing it down as neatly as possible really helped. You want as little as possible needing polishing off so as to minimise the area that needs refinishing.
1) Granite is heavy, but not too bad to move.
Fortunately this country doesn't go in for the American trend of gluing worktops down. Upstands took some care to remove without snapping (we didn't end up breaking any pieces of granite in the whole procedure). Saws and multitools didn't do much for cutting the silicone, but wallpaper scrapers and blades worked ok, combined with a mini prybar. Too late I discovered what I should have bought - a flexible knife used by potters for removing pots from the wheel.
There is no substitute for brute strength. A team of people with clear instructions and carrying is better than wheels or suction cups.
2) Granite is dead easy to cut.
The little GMC wet saw was amazing. Cut 30mm stone with ease. Don't try and use a metal straight edge as a guide - grit or debris can get underneath and the vibrations can cause big scratches that are difficult to remove (more on this later!). Use a paint marker pen and freehand cut. Any minor wobbles can be cleaned up later with polishing pads.
3) Granite polishing is simple, but boring and incredibly messy.
We had to make multiple cuts and most of them needed polishing. ATS diamond tools were amazing, really helpful advice and great products. A set of their economy polishing pads did the whole lot. There seemed to be a bit of a knack to using them. They need to be wet, but seemed to work best just on the balance between wet and drying out. Too much water and it was hard to keep track of what was happening. It was mostly like normal sanding, but the consequences of missing a scratch at an early grit feels much more frustrating! We used a cheap rotary polisher and a very gentle dribble of water.
It is hard to match the finish on a top surface exactly, especially if removing long straight scratches. Even with a 3000 grit pad followed by polishing compound, it looks slightly different from the factory finish. This is probably due to the colour enhancer they put on worktops in the finishing process. MB granite polish was good, but not magic.
We were enjoying the process so much we bought another set of worktops off eBay for £50 to do the utility and an extra run of wall cabinets turned into floor cabinets. Even if the name of the stone is identical, you will see the difference if you look closely. I tried various stonemasons though and their matches were no closer.
Overall the total cost of the saw, polisher, backing pads, diamond pads and diamond holesaw was about £200.
4) Drilling big holes for taps or internal corners is easy
Diamond hole saw from Screwfix did a great job. You need to be careful when starting, but with a bit of patience it was great
5) Polishing internal corners and plunge cuts is hard
We got ambitious and wanted to make a cut out for a Belfast sink for the utility. Polishing a slightly shoddy plunge cut flat was tedious. Polishing the internal corners, even with a flexible backer pad was really tedious! This was probably the only bit that was really difficult, and should probably have practiced first. We got away with it and it ended up looking great, but it could have been a disaster.
We also had to enlarge the sink hole to put a bigger sink in the kitchen bit. We did this in-situ as we didn't want to weaken it too much. Cut outs done by professionals have strengthening bars epoxied either side to prevent it snapping and we were going beyond this. Cutting in situ makes a mess!
6) Granite epoxy sets really fast!
Nothing like pouring epoxy. Make sure everything is set up perfectly in advance and move fast! We found masking tape either side of the seam and smoothing it down as neatly as possible really helped. You want as little as possible needing polishing off so as to minimise the area that needs refinishing.
Jester129
Established Member
Do they do the paint in bright colours as well?
Excellent job and thanks for writing up the summary, so good to see the end result.
alex robinson
Established Member
Thanks. A bit of a relief to have our house back, as well as really nice to have tried new things. Spraying definitely the way to go for painting in future.
I hope it can tempt others to have a go. I was really nervous about the granite, especially as there is so little about DIY stone handling out there and it ended up being one of the easier bits!
TomGW
Established Member
Your new kitchen looks fantastic. I have just finished refitting an extended utility room so have a fair idea of the work involved.
One thing that I’ve done that makes a huge difference to the appearance is to fit a top trim. It’s simply strips of 18mm flat on the top of the cupboards, mitred at the corners and protruding about 5mm beyond the sides and the face of the doors. It doesn’t sound like much but really finishes it off. In your case it would be a matter of running off 100mm strips of 18mm mdf, spraying, mitring and screwing down.
Well done with the granite and full marks for tackling something that is seen as a job for specialists only.
One thing that I’ve done that makes a huge difference to the appearance is to fit a top trim. It’s simply strips of 18mm flat on the top of the cupboards, mitred at the corners and protruding about 5mm beyond the sides and the face of the doors. It doesn’t sound like much but really finishes it off. In your case it would be a matter of running off 100mm strips of 18mm mdf, spraying, mitring and screwing down.
Well done with the granite and full marks for tackling something that is seen as a job for specialists only.
alex robinson
Established Member
For the wall mounted ones? That sounds as if it might be a good idea. They came with some ?pelmets? But they were very fussy so we ditched them. Now is the time to have a think about those finishing off bits - had invited people round last Saturday to give us a hard deadline and we're still grouting the splashback at 2am the night before! Having a regular job can be very frustrating when trying to work on the house...
TomGW
Established Member
Yes, for the wall cupboards and also the top of your oven housing unit. It sounds like nothing but really finishes it off. Still the splashback to do, paint the door and skirting etc. Nearly done
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Well I'll be ...............Good Job.
