— Natural stone · Bayswater, Melbourne
Quartzite.
Quartzite benchtops, cut and installed from our Bayswater workshop. Marble’s veining with granite’s hardness, and the slowest stone we cut.
Living with quartzite
Hardness
As hard as granite or harder. Knives and keys do not mark a true quartzite. It is the natural stone people pick when they want the look of marble without the softness.
Acids and stains
Lemon and wine do not etch it. It is a little porous, so seal it and oil will not soak in.
Sealing
Yes, once at install and then rarely. Test it with a splash of water: when it stops beading, seal again.
Heat
A hot pan is fine. Quartzite is metamorphic sandstone and heat does not trouble it.
Super White is not quartzite
Super White, Fantasy Brown and a few others are sold as quartzite but are dolomite or marble. They etch with lemon and mark like marble. We tell you which is which before you buy.
In the workshop
Hard, so it is cut wet with diamond blades at a measured pace and polished to a deep gloss. It holds a crisp arris and takes a mitred waterfall cleanly. The time it takes is planned into the job.
The names people ask for
Taj Mahal
Warm cream with soft gold veins. The most searched quartzite in Melbourne, and a true quartzite.
Emerald Haze
Grey-green with a soft drift. Quiet, and very hard.
Super White
Sold as quartzite, behaves as marble. Beautiful, and it etches.
A Taj Mahal slab on our floor, and where it goes. Every quartzite slab is different, so the one you stood in front of is the one that gets photographed, laid out and cut.
See how your pieces are laid out on the slab →
Emerald Haze, and a waterfall island. Quartzite takes a mitred waterfall well because it does not chip at the arris the way softer stone can.
See the edge profiles in 3D →
— 03 · Against the others
Quartzite against the other stones
Quartzite is natural stone at the hard end of the range. Beside it, the three man-made slabs: what each is, and the places it does better or worse than quartzite.
Quartzite
Sandstone pressed and heated until the grains fused. Marble's veining with granite's hardness, and a little porous, so it wants a seal.
In the workshop
Cut wet with diamond blades at a measured pace and polished to a deep gloss. It holds a crisp arris and takes a mitred waterfall cleanly.
Where each one differs from quartzite: green is better, red is worse.
Porcelain Large-format porcelain slabs
A large-format ceramic slab, fired from clay and minerals, with the pattern printed on the face. Thin, light and colour-fast.
Sintered stone Smartstone · Dekton · Neolith · Lapitec
Natural minerals pressed and fired into a dense slab with no resin, coloured through the body. Made for heat, sun and hard use.
Reconstituted stone Quartz-look engineered surfaces, zero-silica
Crushed mineral bound in resin and cured into a uniform slab. The same colour and pattern every time. Today's Australian slabs are zero-silica.
— 04 · Before you buy
The questions people type before they buy quartzite
01Is quartzite banned in Australia?
No. Quartzite is quarried rock. The engineered stone ban of July 2024 covers resin-bound quartz slabs, not natural stone. Quartzite dust does carry silica, which is why we cut it wet and never dry.
02Quartzite vs marble
Quartzite is harder, does not etch, and needs less sealing. Marble is softer, easier to repair and quicker to cut. If you want the veining and cook with lemons, quartzite. If you want a stone that ages, marble.
03Quartzite pros and cons
For: the look of marble, the hardness of granite, hot pans, no etching. Against: the slowest and dearest stone to fabricate, a little porous so it wants sealing, and some stones sold as quartzite are not.
04Is Super White a quartzite?
No. Super White is a dolomite. It is sold as quartzite, looks like one, and etches like marble. We tell you before you buy it, and we cut it happily if you still want it.
05Does quartzite need sealing?
Yes, at install, and then rarely, because it is less porous than marble. A splash of water that soaks in instead of beading is the sign.
06What does a quartzite benchtop cost?
The slab is usually dearer than marble, and the fabrication is slower, so the same layout costs more to make. What decides it is how many slabs the layout needs, the edge and the cutouts, and you see all three on your slab layout before you decide.
07Taj Mahal quartzite
The most searched quartzite in Australia. Warm cream, soft gold veins, a true quartzite. Smartstone also makes a sintered Taj Mahal, which is the same look without the sealing.
— 05 · Edges, thickness, fluting
What we can do with a quartzite slab
Quartzite takes every profile we cut and holds a crisp arris. Fluting is slow work in it and priced as such. Try each edge on a quartzite sample in 3D, then open a live quote.