Polishing Soapstone
Today I cut out the sink opening in a piece of soapstone for a counter top.
I got this DIY counter top kit from the Albarene Soapstone Quarry in Schulyer, Virginia. It was one of the most productive soapstone quarries in the world for almost 100 years until a pair of catastrophic floods damaged the equipment in the early 1970s.
A Canadian company recently bought the quarry and introduced state of the art quarrying methods and a new way to stabilize thin slabs of brittle stone. They use a film of epoxy to bond a fiberglass mesh to the back side of the slab, greatly increasing its strength.
After cutting out the center hole, I spent a good bit of time testing out my polishing methods on the waste piece.
Soapstone is very soft so the sandpaper cuts into it quickly. The light colored flecks you see on the picture above a pieces of iron pyrite, or fool's gold. They are much harder than the other minerals. The darker stone also has a more subtle grain or texture that consists of bands of alternating harder and softer minerals.
I learned that it is rather tricky to make a surface both flat and smooth even if it is easy to make it flat or smooth.
Lucky for me the quarry provided me with a slab that is flat and smooth. All I have to to is avoid screwing it up.
Cheers, Professor Bromide 
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I can't wait to see it finished. It's going to be lovely.
It won't be too much longer. Things are moving quicker now. Other chores are piling up, of course.
Impressive, counter tops are one of the only things I have outsourced. I can’t wait to see the results of the install.
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It will probably take another weekend to finish the counter top, then a weekend to paint, then a weekend to install everything.
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I know those kind of timelines. I’m just over 1 year intro my remodel.
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You'd think they'd go together. Softer things are easier to screw up. I find it easier to work with metal than wood for that very reason.
Yeah. It is often easier to work with materials that are very hard if they are nice and uniform. Many woods, especially softwood like yellow pine, is hard to finish because it has some hard spots and some soft spots.
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