A fixed porcelain slab size
Almost every porcelain slab in our range comes at 64 by 128 inches. A quarried slab cannot work that way: each piece is measured individually because the block decided how big it could be.
The practical difference is when the decision can be made. A natural slab has to be reserved before a layout can be finalised, because the layout depends on what that particular piece will yield. A porcelain sheet can be designed around from the start, and a second one can be ordered later at the same size. For a large kitchen or a run of wall panels, that removes most of the planning risk.
Porcelain slab thickness
These sheets come in at around half an inch, against 1 1/4 inch for most of the quarried slabs in our range. The material is engineered to work at that thickness, and the weight it saves is what makes a sheet of this size practical to move and to fix to a wall.
It also changes what the edge of a countertop looks like, since the visible thickness has to be built instead of cut from solid material. That is a fabrication question, and your fabricator will show you what the options do to the appearance of the pattern at the corner.
Lappato lucido and other finishes
Most of this range carries a lappato lucido surface, with matte and full polish behind it. Lappato is a partial polish: the surface is worked until parts of it shine and parts stay matte, which gives a broken reflection and not a mirror.
A broken reflection behaves more like a worked stone than a single even gloss does, because a real polished surface is never perfectly uniform either. It is one of the reasons a marble look porcelain reads as convincing, alongside the resolution of the print and the texture pressed into the body.
Names borrowed from marble
The names here are borrowed: Calacatta, Arabescato, Macchia, Marquinia, Nero, Grigio. Each names a marble the pattern is based on, so the name is useful as a description of the look and useless as anything else.
What the name does not carry across is variation. A quarried Calacatta differs from slab to slab because the quarry made it that way; a porcelain Calacatta repeats its pattern on a cycle, and how long that cycle runs varies between manufacturers and ranges. For a single countertop it is invisible. Across a large continuous run the manufacturer is the one who can answer it.
Care and sealing
The care notes on these slabs are unusually short, and they say the same thing throughout: the body is dense enough to resist moisture and staining, and it does not need sealing. There is no periodic treatment in the way there is with a quarried stone.
The one caution that does recur is about abrasive pads on a lappato surface, since a partial polish can be dulled by them. Beyond that, the upkeep question that runs through every quarried stone page on this site simply does not arise with this material.
Porcelain against sintered stone
The two sit next to each other on this site and answer a similar brief in different ways. Both are manufactured, both arrive at fixed sizes, and both skip the sealing question. Where they differ is in the surface range and the look, which the sintered stone page sets out.
The stone slab page sets out how the quarried materials work by comparison, and the marble page covers the stones this range takes its names from.
