Finishes and material
The edge section, drawn at full scale.
Five profiles, five sections. Change the thickness and you see the exact cut that has to be made, with its radius and its polished developed length — the figure you price the job on, not a pretty label.
Canto vivo
El corte de sierra tal cual, con la arista a 90°. Es el canto más barato y el que se usa contra la pared o donde va a quedar oculto por un zócalo. En una encimera de paso se nota: la arista viva se desconcha con un golpe y corta al pasar el trapo.
Profile data
The developed length is the length of the profile line in section: how much material has to be polished per metre of edge. That is where the machine time comes from.
Choosing with a reason
Where each profile works.
Square
Against a wall, under a plinth, edges nobody touches. The cheapest of the lot.
Bevelled
Thin porcelain and a contemporary look. Breaks the arris without fattening the edge.
Half bullnose
The most asked for in kitchens. Comfortable to lean on and hard to chip.
Ogee
Classic kitchens and bathrooms. More machine time and fussier about the detail.
Polished square
A square edge, but polished to a mirror. Lets the slab thickness show.
Cadmetry stores the finish edge by edge, not for the whole piece: normally the same worktop runs square against the wall and bullnose along the front.
Material
Grain is not decoration: it is a cutting constraint.
Two adjacent pieces with the grain turned 90° are visible from the kitchen door. That is why the angle travels with the piece all the way to the machine.
Marble
Continuous, directional veining. It is where the grain angle matters most, and where a contour error means scrapping the whole slab, because the next one will not match.
Granite
Even grain, so it is more forgiving on orientation. It is not forgiving on the contour: reworking granite that is already cut is slow and expensive.
Porcelain
12 mm thicknesses and 3 metre formats: the material least tolerant of a badly cut cardboard template, and the one that gains most from measuring with a laser.
Try the finish on your own piece.
In Cadmetry you assign a different profile to each edge of the same piece, and the DXF comes out with one layer per finish so the machine operator has nothing to ask about.