A how-to Guide for Cutting Quartzite

Preparing your Quartzite

Quite often, quartzite slabs will arrive from natural stone suppliers with a protective mesh layer to enhance their strength, but if it doesn’t, we recommend applying it yourself. There are many different mesh layers you can use, but a combination of a mesh and Glaciex or Resiliex epoxy resin from Stonegate is a perfect solution for this purpose.

Once the quartzite is supported, a perfectly level saw bed is required before cutting, to ensure no movement of the quartzite. Check the level of your saw bed and mill or replace if necessary, you could also add something like some black nest rubber matting to enable maximum consistency of the cut during fabrication.

Which Quartzite Cutting Blade?

To achieve a smooth cut on a uniquely tough material like a quartzite slab, using a specialist quartzite cutting blade is recommended, such as Stonegate’s Fury blade. Blades like this are very popular with fabricators because they are designed with a specific bond, which reveals the right amount of diamond necessary to cut the hardest natural quartzites without impacting the life of the blade.

Best Technique for Cutting Quartzite

When it comes to cutting your quartzite, plunge cutting can cause excessive chipping, so we recommend avoiding this technique. For the best results, cut halfway through the stone then enter from the other side to meet in the middle.

Mitring your Quartzite 

If you are mitring your quartzite, slow down the feed rate to 350mm/minute and use extra water to get the cleanest cut. It’s recommended that your blade is at optimal sharpness and you can do this by using a sharpening block.

Cutting Quartzite on the CNC

To cut your stone on the Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine, you need a core drill with a soft bond, designed to drill natural quartzite, like the Fury Core Drill. The perfect router for quartzite would have special diamond technology, an end segment and designed with a hard bond for a longer life. Something like the specialist quartzite router from Stonegate would be a good example of this. By nature, Quartzite is extremely strong, so it requires premium tools to deliver the kind of finish you might expect on granite or engineered stone.

As natural quartzite is a very hard material, using a breaker tool to remove larger amounts of excess stock will prevent unnecessary wearing down of your position tools.

Every Workshop is Different… seek help!

Sourcing Quartzite slabs

If you are interested in sourcing this wonderful natural stone we have a superb collection of quartzite slabs to choose from. Our range includes some of the best quartzite from Brazil such as Taj Mahal (as well as honed Taj Mahal and leathered Taj Mahal versions), Bianco Superiore, Bianco Eclipse, Calacatta Matarazzo, Cristallo and Avocatus.

Read our Quartzite Buying Guide

For more information about Quartzite read our Quartzite Buying Guide which covers a range of topics and considerations when buying this wonderful stone. If you have any questions regarding the supply of quartzite slabs please contact us via WhatsApp, email or telephone.

Stonegate Tooling

We would like to thank Stonegate Tooling, a provider of specialist products & knowledge to stone fabricators, for their assistance and expertise in compiling this article.