I have not tried all the suggestions. I have not marked on glacier white either. I will give the other materials a try along with the other cleaners.

I find it amazing that a product that will actually clean the product in not suggested by the manufacturers.

The pigment looks like it is down under the quartz crystals so we will have to see if a cleaner can suck them out.

Why assume that the bond between the resin and the quartz is absolute?

Marker ink, mixed with a solvent to thin it out even more, will find any gap available.

Just received another inquiry about Silestone quartz with streaks running through it. Quartz it starting to show it's age a bit. Everyone believes there is a perfect material and it just isn't the case.

The quartz in Quartz is fairly stable, as far as I can see. The poly resin will grow and shrink with thermal changes. What do we think will happen?

All marketing hype. Nothing is perfect but there is a product for everyone out there somewhere. The trick is to match the right product with the right person.

Have you ever seen ES burn? A small scrap piece about 1 inch sq. will fill a 4400 sq. ft. shop with nasty toxic smoke on about 3 minutes. I tried it once. Maybe that is what is wrong with me now.

H All,

I have to agree with Tom, that quartz lies somewhere between natural stone and Solid Surface in porosity etc. And yes there is a mismatch between quartz expansion and resin expansion. But there is also a mismatch between ATH and resin thermal expansion. IMO part of the problem with quartz is that the individual grains of quartz are much larger than the grains of ATH (which are typically in the 5-75 micron range for ATH depending on the manufacturer). For comparison a red blood cell is about 10 microns in diameter. And the resin content is much less for Estone.

So in Estone you can imagine a large quatz particle expanding and contracting less than the "glue" or Binder resin surrounding it. In Solid Surface the ATH grain is much smaller, and the resin content higher. So imagine tiny grains of ATH floating in a sea of resin that can more easily absorb the expansion/contraction mismatch of a smaller particle. Ming Bai ma (Chinese for is it clear)?

In some solid surface products and in all estone they also include a bi functional moeity to chemically bind or link the resin to the filler. This increases strength as well as helping keep the filler tied to the resin so it doesnt fracture apart during normal thermal cycling.

In addition to being flame retardant the ATH content in SS and the quartz content in Estone reduces the overall expansion/contraction of the material with respect to temperature.

As for the burning, E stone, like SS is a class I or class A material (the highest fire rating a building material can garner) and  I dont think that really matters to Home owners. For example unfilled Avonite (which is a class C or class III fire rated material) will burn like a candlestick when ignited. But people buy it for its beauty and it is truly gorgeous material. And a butcher block counter top will burn too.

I always thought the fire retardant property was really overhyped for any countertop material. After all this smutz usually sits on top of a wood based cabinet system and when that catches fire you have a few minutes to 'get out of Dodge City" before you die from smoke inhalation (lack of oxygen or you OD on the toxins commonly produced by buring wood.

We recently stayed in a new hotel complex in Adelaide which was about 8 mths old, and were moved around to 3 different floors. Each room we stayed in had a Ceaser stone bar top in it and each one still had the room number visible on the top, some bright spark had written the room numbers on the tops with a marker and were unable to remove it, if I owned the complex I would have had all the tops replaced.

That is what I noticed, the marker is sometimes impossible to remove.

It does stain. Manufacturers let us believe that they have a super product, but it does have problems. I had this same problem before, I bought some second choice slabs from a manufacturer and he marked the defects with a permanent marker ... No way I could take out 100% of the marks.

Tomson
Engineered Stone

While the polymers may be relatively impervious to liquid, are the chips in ES quartz chips? Is quartz itself non-pourous, or are the mfgr's relying on the polymers for cleanability?

Posted By Len Smith on 07 Feb 2011 11:38 AM
While the polymers may be relatively impervious to liquid, are the chips in ES quartz chips? Is quartz itself non-pourous, or are the mfgr's relying on the polymers for cleanability?

Len both the quartz and the polymers can stain or hold dirt. When you look at ES closely you will at time see VERY small voids in the quarts chips and or the polymers, any void will hold dirt.  

So I was looking at a list of sites that link back to the FabNet and noticed this website called, "Granite Gurus".

It caught me by surprise when I read the article. It basically says that my question about quartz being non-porous is kinda dumb and that I should already know that a sharpie would permanently stain the material. HERE IS THE LINK

I thought for sure you would be able to remove a sharpie from quartz, especially with acetone or a strong cleaner.  I was wrong.  Funny how the sales reps don't mention this when describing the material.  In fact Consumer reports grades quartz as an A which would lead me to believe the non-porous material would not stain.

While I don't expect countertop materials to be bulletproof, I do expect a NON-POROUS material to be NON-POROUS. Maybe I am just being to critical.