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.