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Diamonds Are Forever. These Counters May Be Too.

[FINAL Edition] Ann Marie Moriarty.
The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: Feb 15, 2001.
pg. H.01 Full Text (1205 words)
Copyright The Washington Post Company Feb 15, 2001

Kitchen counters are expected to take a lot of abuse and still look great. Most fall short of the mark. Some are easily scratched, others easily stained, and the most rugged ones look, well, rugged.

The ideal combination of beauty and indestructibility would be a countertop-size sheet of diamond -- hard enough to withstand scratches, with plenty of sparkle and shine.

That, of course, does not exist. But by going three notches down the Mohs hardness scale, we reach quartz -- a material as abundant as diamonds are rare. And a recently introduced quartz material is making a lot of kitchen counters look terrific while standing up to whatever the cook dishes out.

"The last time I saw a new product generate this much excitement was when Corian was introduced" more than 30 years ago, says John Murray, the owner of Counter Intelligence in Silver Spring, which fabricates and installs custom counters. The product, a type of engineered stone sold under several names, is made with a relatively new manufacturing process that combines particles of quartz with silica sand, pigment and binders to produce a material with the look and feel of granite but with resistance to stains, scratches and impacts that surpasses natural stone. And the color options include some never found in nature.

How do they do that?

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