Why We Carry Quality Granite

Myth: All granite is granite, and one slab is just as sturdy as another.

Fact: Not all slabs are equal in quality, even if they are the same type or color!

• Some granite is mined from a section of the mountain that has too many fissures, or compacts the granite together poorly, resulting in a finished slab that does not hold up well under fabrication. 
• Not all factories will mine, cut, and handle the granite the same. If a company is rough with the material, it may arrive to showrooms in cracked or warped condition.
• In order to make a certain shade of granite, some companies will cheat by dying the individual stone slabs. Unfortunately, this stone may bleach in areas that are exposed to sunlight years down the road. It also becomes hard for the fabricators to match the false color of the stone on the cut edges.
• Marble, travertine, and onyx are especially prone to cracking and breakage during mining, transportation, and fabrication, because they are formed of a more delicately bonded material. 

A yard of one of our favorite granite quarries in Brazil.

Some granite yards will carry any stone, especially if they can sell it cheaply, regardless of the quality that the slabs arrive in, and unaware of the complications that can arise during fabrication, installation, or under the wear and tear of daily use in a family kitchen. The slabs look to be of similar quality when a homeowner is shopping for that perfect color, but an experienced fabricator can often tell on sight if a slab is cracked, bowed, or crumbly.

Because our customers and fabricators are important to us, Natural Stone Source strives to only carry high-quality stone. If we notice that a bundle of granite is flawed, we return it to it's origin, and we will not stock that color lot again. This ensures that our frequent fabricators are able craft beautiful well made granite countertops. In the same vein (pun intended) we want every homeowner to be satisfied with sturdy kitchens and bathrooms that will last a lifetime.

For a look at our entire hand-selected variety of marble, granite, travertine, onyx, quartzite, and more, please visit our main website at www.nssgranite.com.

Vein Cut and Cross Cut Stone

Before a slab becomes a slab, granite or travertine is pulled from the earth in the form of a block. Veins of various minerals, each of a unique color and texture, run through the block of stone. These mineral veins will give the future slabs their pattern and character. The nature of that pattern, however, is determined by what direction the stone block is sliced.

A massive block of natural stone containing veins can be cut one of two ways.

Vein Cut Stone

A vein cut slab shows the mineral veins running either lengthwise along the slab or vertically. This is also known as cutting “against the vein”.

Cross Cut Stone

A cross cut slab is sliced at a 90 degree angle to what the vein cut slab would have been. It shows a cross section of the veins and layers in the stone block. This style of cut is also called "with the vein".

Though two slabs from the same block share the exact same composition of colors and minerals, the results can be wildly different. The Tobacco Brown slabs from Italy, shown above, demonstrate the incredible differences between vein cut and cross cut granite.

To see what slabs we currently carry in stock, please see www.nssgranite.com or visit us in person at 425 N. Frontage Rd. in Nipomo California, 93444.

Bookmatched and Butterflied

When a block of stone is sliced to produce individual slabs, the granite and marble quarries will usually implement a practice of bookmatching the slabs, also known as “butterflying”.  

Above, a rough block of Calcatta marble is ready to be sliced into slabs.

To bookmatch slabs, every other slab receives a high polish on opposite sides of the rock. When consecutive slabs are placed side by side, they are nearly mirror images of one another. Thus, they are like a book that has been opened, or, like a butterfly with identical wings spread out.

Here the Calcatta slab slices have been polished in bookmatch fashion.

Bookmatching is useful detail for fabricators when they would like the seam in a kitchen countertop to flow continuously. When the slab has a good deal of movement, especially, or when the color variation is great, granite fabricators can simply continue the countertop stretch into the next consecutive slab.

Butterflied Roma Imperial

Countertops that employ bookmatched slabs are usually able to have a stripe or wave continue across the seam, for a complete visual of the geological process that formed the stone underground over millions of years.

A beautiful example of how movement can be continued across a seam.


To see what slabs we currently have in stock, please visit www.nssgranite.com or come see us in person at 425 N. Frontage Rd. in Nipomo California, 93444.

From Earth to Slab

Granite and marble is quarried from the earth in many locations across the world. Once cut from the ground in large blocks, the stone is then processed into slabs and shipped to various natural stone showrooms.

A quarry is an excavated area known to be rich in solid granite of desirable color and pattern. Through careful planning, the shape of each granite block is mapped and marked from above. Along these lines, holes are drilled, and explosives and wedges are inserted into the holes. When the charge goes off, the block splits from the mountain and often slides or tumbles quite a distance before stopping.

Heavy machinery is used to hoist each block to the factory where the granite and marble blocks will be sliced as if they were loaves of bread. Great saws employ several sizes of blades to simultaneously cut through each layer of stone.

Once the rough slabs are cut, they undergo the polishing process. Each slab is held in place with suction cups while a polishing machine gives the surface a high gloss that usually cannot be reproduced by hand.

Polished slabs are bundled in series with the other slabs that were cut from the same block, in sequence. Often, alternating slabs in the sequence will have the reverse side polished, in order to provide “book-matched” sets of slabs.

Bundles are shipped to distributors across the world and displayed in showrooms such as Natural Stone Source for homeowners to choose from. 

To see what slabs Natural Stone Source is currently carrying, please visit us at www.nssgranite.com or come see us in person at 425 N. Frontage Rd. in Nipomo California, 93444.