NW: Porcelain cutting has brought one of the more difficult challenges of being in the stone industry. To most fabricators, this is a brand-new product that requires more sophisticated fabrication practices or you risk damaging the material in the manufacturing and installation process. Porcelain tends to be fragile and have tension in the material from baking and curing and creates a high risk of cracking and breakage during the cutting and polishing process.

JB: People have been afraid of porcelain because of the horror stories about it. They would need two slabs for the job and order four instead because they knew two of them would break. So this becomes a large expense for them and they don’t want to deal with it, so they would say I don’t want to do this because I can cut five quartz jobs in the same amount of time. But really, there isn’t anything to be scared about. 

SW: What are some tips you have for cutting porcelain?

NW: For blade cutting it is best to have a machine that can vary the RPM of the blade motor to increase that speed and put the proper thin rim blade with minimal flex. Most customers are using a smaller 14-inch blade with RPMs near 2,200 to 2,300.

Also, for a lot of customers, waterjets are preferred because it is a non-contact cut -- eliminating the vibration in the material during blade cutting which can cause it to crack.

For thin porcelain up to 6mm, customers can use a score and snap machine with success, but only for straight cuts.

JB: The ones that have been successful with porcelain are getting the proper training, they are using a flat and level table bed and using a proper blade to cut it. Not only proper blades, but proper blade care.

SW: How important is tooling when cutting the material?

NW: As with cutting any material, using the proper blade is important. Most customers find that you should be using a porcelain specific blade that has additional core support and is thin without large gaps between segments. This minimizes the pounding on the material during cutting -- minimizing vibration and cracking.  

SW: How important is it to practice and get training with porcelain?

JB: Yes, that is important. Because we do that, we have an infinity porcelain specialist, Adam Brewers, on our team. He goes around to all of the different fabrication shops and all of our locations up and down the East Coast to sit with them and show them how to use the blade proper speed -- going through the proper fabrication with them. That is going to allow them to be successful. And that is something that, to your point, you know you come to us as your professionals, and we are able to help you out and give you what you need to be successful.