— Sintered stone · Bayswater, Melbourne
Sintered stone.
Sintered stone benchtops, cut and installed from our Bayswater workshop. Minerals pressed and fired into a slab with no resin. Smartstone first, then Dekton, Neolith and Lapitec.
Living with sintered stone
Hardness
Harder than granite on the face. Knives, keys and dragged pans do not mark it, which is why busy kitchens pick it.
Heat
Take a pan off the hob and set it straight down. The slab was fired at over 1,200 degrees to make it, so the stove does not worry it.
Stains and sealing
Nothing soaks in, so nothing stains and it never needs sealing. Wipe it and it is clean. Wine, lemon and oil leave no mark.
Outdoors
Colour-fast in full sun and unbothered by rain. It is the stone we put on outdoor kitchens and barbecue benches.
Knocks and edges
Dense and brittle. A hard knock on an unsupported corner or a thin cutout can crack it, so every cutout is supported and every edge is handled with care until it is installed.
In the workshop
Cut on the bridge saw with slow, clean passes at the cutouts and mitres, then mitred and joined at the edges so the face wraps the corner. Every cutout is supported and every piece is moved with care from the saw to the site.
The ranges people ask for
Smartstone Taj Mahal
Warm cream with soft gold veins, the sintered take on the quartzite of the same name.
Smartstone Calacatta Viola
White ground with wine-coloured veins. The most searched stone name in Australia this year.
Smartstone Bellini Bianco
Soft white with a light grey vein. The quiet one.
Dekton, Neolith, Lapitec
The other sintered ranges, ordered in per job.
Two Smartstone slabs, Calacatta Viola and Taj Mahal, the two ranges people search for by name. Both are sintered: minerals fired into a slab, no resin, coloured through the body.
See how your pieces are laid out on the slab →
Bellini Bianco and Calacatta Oro. Every slab in a sintered range is made to the same pattern, so the slab you see on our floor is the slab that arrives for your job.
Outdoors is where sintered stone earns its keep. Sun, rain and a hot barbecue plate do nothing to it, and Nero Puro stays black.
A full-height splashback in one slab, and Pietra Luna. Large slabs mean fewer joins on a wall and behind a cooktop.
Design fluted stone yourself →
— 03 · Against the others
Sintered stone against the other stones
Sintered stone beside the other three, in plain words: what each one is, and the three places it does better or worse than sintered.
Sintered stone
Natural minerals pressed and fired into a dense slab with no resin, coloured through the body on most ranges. Every slab in a range matches the last.
In the workshop
Cut with slow, clean passes at the cutouts and mitres, mitred and joined at the edges so the face wraps the corner, and supported at every cutout from the saw to the site.
Where each one differs from sintered stone: green is better, red is worse.
Natural stone Marble · Granite · Quartzite · Travertine
Rock cut from a quarried block into slabs, then polished or honed. Every slab is its own.
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.
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 sintered stone
01Is sintered stone banned in Australia?
No. The 2024 ban is about engineered stone, the quartz slabs bound with resin. Sintered stone has no resin in it and was never covered. Along with porcelain, it is what the trade moved to.
02What is the difference between sintered stone and porcelain?
Same family. Both are minerals fired hard. Porcelain is thinner, with the pattern printed on the face. Sintered stone is thicker and denser, and on most ranges the colour runs through the body, so a cut edge looks like the face.
03Does sintered stone chip?
On the face, almost never. On an edge or a thin cutout, it can, if it takes a hard knock. That is why we mitre the edges and support every cutout.
04Can you put hot pans on sintered stone?
Yes. It was fired at over 1,200 degrees. A pan off the hob does not mark it.
05Is sintered stone good for an outdoor kitchen?
It is the best of the four for outdoors. Colour-fast in sun, unbothered by rain, and a hot barbecue plate does nothing to it.
06What does a sintered stone benchtop cost?
More than reconstituted stone, in the range of a mid marble, less than the rarer quartzites. The slab count, the cutouts and the mitred edges decide it, and we quote it live on your slab layout, not from a rate card.
07Smartstone, Dekton, Neolith or Lapitec?
All four are sintered. Smartstone is the range we show first, with its slabs on our floor. Dekton, Neolith and Lapitec come in per job. The right one is usually the colour you like, because they behave the same in a kitchen.
— 05 · Edges, thickness, fluting
What we can do with a sintered slab
Mitred waterfall ends and full-height splashbacks suit sintered stone. Profiled edges are limited on ranges where the pattern sits on the face, so we mitre instead. Try each edge on a sintered sample in 3D, then open a live quote.